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of  the 

University  of  California 


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This  book  is  DUE  on  the  last  date  stamped  below 

MAY?     19J, 

»*  22  1940 
SEP  2  3  1958 


in  tt)e 
College  Chapel       "  ^ 

SHORT  ADDRESSES  TO  YOUNG  MEN  ON 

PERSONAL  RELIGION  BY  FRANCIS  GREENWOOD 

PEABODY,  PLUMMER   PROFESSOR  OF 

CHRISTIAN  MORALS  IN  HARVARD 

UNIVERSITY 


BOSTON  AND  NEW  YORK 

HOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN  AND  COMPANY 

{tbe  flitirrti&e  prrt*,  Cambriftge 

1898 


Copyright,  1896, 
BY  FRANCIS  G.  PEABODY. 

All  rights  reserved. 


The  Riverside  Press,  Cambridge,  Mass.,  U.S.A. 
Elect  retyped  and  Printed  by  H.  O.  Houghton  &  Co. 


IE 

4-3  \  0 
3  I 


TO 
MY  BELOVED  AND  REVERED  COLLEAGUES 

THE   PREACHERS  TO  THE    UNIVERSITY 

AND  TO  THE  SACRED   MEMORY  OF 

PHILLIPS  BROOKS 

OF  THE  FIRST  STAFF  OF  PREACHERS 
WHO    BEING    DEAD    YET    SPEAKETH    AMONG    US 

IN  GRATEFUL  RECOLLECTION  OF 

HAPPY  ASSOCIATION   IN  THE  SERVICE  OF 

CHRIST  AND  THE  CHURCH 


In  the  conduct  of  morning  prayers  at  Harvard 
University,  the  Preachers  to  the  University  usually 
say  a  few  plain  words  to  interpret  or  enforce  the 
Bible  lesson  which  has  been  read.  The  entire  ser- 
vice is  but  fifteen  minutes  long,  so  that  this  little 
address  must  occupy  not  more  than  two  or  three 
minutes,  and  can  at  the  best  indicate  only  a  single 
wholesome  thought  with  which  a. young  man  may 
begin  his  day.  It  has  been  suggested  to  me  that  some 
of  these  informal  and  brief  addresses,  if  printed,  may 
continue  to  be  of  interest  to  those  who  heard  them, 
or  may  perhaps  be  of  use  to  other  young  people  in 
like  conditions  of  life  ;  and  I  have  therefore  tried  to 
recall  some  of  these  mornings  in  the  College  Chapel. 

It  is  now  ten  years  since  it  was  determined  that 
religion  in  our  University  should  be  regarded  no 
longer  as  a  part  of  College  discipline,  but  as  a 
natural  and  rational  opportunity  offering  itself  to 
the  life  of  youth.  It  was  a  momentous  transition, 
undertaken  with  the  profoundest  sense  of  its  serious- 
ness and  significance.  It  was  an  act  of  faith,  — of 
faith  in  religion  and  of  faith  in  young  men.  The 
University  announced  the  belief  that  religion,  ra- 
tionally presented,  will  always  have  for  healthy- 
minded  young  men  a  commanding  interest.  This 
faith  has  been  abundantly  justified.  There  has 


become  familiar  among  us,  through  the  devotion  of 
successive  staffs  of  Preachers,  a  clearer  sense  of  the 
simplicity  and  reality  of  religion,  which,  for  many 
young  men,  has  enriched  the  meaning  of  University 
life.  No  one  who  has  had  the  slightest  part  in 
administering  such  a  work  can  sum  up  its  present 
issues  without  feeling  on  the  one  hand  a  deep  sense 
of  personal  insufficiency,  and  on  the  other  hand  a 
large  and  solemn  hope. 

I  have  indicated  such  sources  of  suggestion  for 
these  addresses  as  I  noted  at  the  time  of  their  de- 
livery, but  it  may  well  be  that  some  such  indebted- 
ness remains,  against  my  will,  unacknowledged. 

CAMBRIDGE,  October,  1896. 
vi 


CONTENTS 


PACK 

L  THE  CLOUD  OF  WITNESSES  i 

IL    NOT  TO   BE    MINISTERED   UNTO,  BUT    TO    MIN- 
ISTER          4 

III.  THE  TRANSMISSION  OP  POWER        ...  7 

IV.  LET  YOUR  LIGHT  SHINE         ....  9 
V.  THE  CENTURION  .       . 12 

VL  SPIRITUAL  ATHLETICS 15 

VII.  THE  RHYTHM  OP  LIPS 18 

VIII.  THAT  OTHER  DISCIPLE 21 

IX.  MORAL  TIMIDITY 25 

X.  THE  HEAVENLY  VISION          ....  27 

XL  THE  BREAD  AND  WATER  OP  LIFE  .       .       .30 

XII.  THE  RECOIL  op  JUDGMENTS         ...  32 

XIII.  THE  INCIDENTAL 35 

XIV.  LEARNING  AND  LIFE 3$ 

XV.  FILLING  LIPB  FULL 41 

XVI.  TAKING  ONE'S  SHARE  OP  HARDSHIPS  .       .  44 

XVII.  CHRISTIAN  UNITY 47 

XVIII.  THE  PATIENCE  OP  FAITH      ....  49 

XIX.  THE  BOND-SERVANT  AND  THE  SON         .       .  52 

XX.  DYING  TO  LIVE 54 

XXI.  CARRYING  YOUR  OWN  CROSS     .       .       .        .56 

XXII.  THE  POOR  IN  SPIRIT 58 

XXIII.  THE  MOURNERS 60 

XXIV.  THE  MEEK 62 

XXV.  THE  HUNGER  FOR  RIGHTEOUSNESS        .       .  64 

XXVI.  THE  MERCIFUL 67 

XXVII.  THE  PURE  IN  HEART 69 

XXVIII.   THE  Two  BAPTISMS 71 

vii 


Confetti 

XXIX.  THE  WISE  MEN  AND  THE  SHEPHERDS  .    74 

XXX.  THE  SONG  OF  THE  ANGELS        ...  76 

XXXI.  THE  SECRET  OF  HEARTS  REVEALED     .  .    78 

XXXII.  THE  GRACE  OF  JESUS  CHRIST    ...  80 

XXXIII.  THE  EVERLASTING  ARMS        ...  .83 

XXXIV.  THE  COMFORT  OF  THE  TRUTH  ...  85 
XXXV.  THE  SWORD  OF  THE  SPIRIT  .       .       .  .87 

XXXVI.    LIFE  is  AN  ARROW 89 

XXXVII.  THE  DECLINE  OF  ENTHUSIASM      .        .        .90 

XXXVIII.  THE  CROWN  OF  LIFE 93 

XXXIX.  THE    HIDDEN    MANNA   AND   THE   WHITE 

STONE 96 

XL.  THE  MORNING  STAR 99 

XLI.  LIVING  AS  DEAD 102 

XLII.  THE  OPEN  DOOR 105 

XLIII.  BEHOLD,   I   STAND    AT    THE    DOOR    AND 

KNOCK 107 

XLIV.  HE  THAT  OVERCOMETH       .       .       .  IIO 

XLV.  THE  PRODIGALITY  OF  PROVIDENCE      .       .  113 

XLVI.  THE  HARD  LIFE 116 

XLVII.  THE  THIN  LIFE 118 

XLVIII.  THE  CROWDED  LIFE 120 

XLIX.  THE  PATIENCE  OF  NATURE   ....  122 

L.  THE  DISTRIBUTION  OF  TALENTS       .       .      124 

LI.  THE  LAW  OF  INCREASING  RETURNS     .       .  127 

LII.  THE  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE  OF  WEALTH  .      129 

LIII.  THE  AVERAGE  MAN 131 

LIV.  THE  OVERCOMING  OF  INSIGNIFICANCE     .      133 

LV.  CAPACITY  EXTIRPATED  BY  DISUSE       .        .  136 

LVI.  THE  PARABLE  OF  THE  VACUUM         .        .      138 

LVII.  CHRISTIANITY  AND  BUSINESS         .        .        .  140 

LVIII.   MAKING  FRIENDS  OF  MAMMON  .       .       .      143 

LIX.  COMING  TO  ONE'S  SELF 146 

LX.  POPULARITY 148 

LXI.  Two  QUESTIONS  ABOUT  CHRISTIANITY        .  151 

LXII.  AN  UNRECORDED  DAY        ....      154 

LXIII.   THE  ANSWER  TO  'PRAYER      ....  156 

LXIV.  AN  IMPOSSIBLE  NEUTRALITY      .       .       .159 

viii 


Contfnte 

LXV.  THH  FINISHED  LIFE 163 

LXVI.  ATTAINING  TO  THE  RESURRECTION   .       .  166 

LXVII.  SIMON  OF  CYRENB 168 

LXVIII.  POWER  AND  TEMPTATION    .       .       .       .171 

LXIX.  LOVING  WITH  THE  MIND  ....      174 

LXX.  AM  I  MY  BROTHER'S  KEEPER?   .       .       .  176 

LXXI.  PROFESSIONALISM  AND  PERSONALITY     .      178 

LXXII.  THE  CENTRAL  SOLITUDE      ....  "180 

LXXIII.     IF   THOU    KNEWEST   THE   GlFT  OF   GOD     .         182 

LXX IV.  THE  WEDDING  GARMENT     .       .       .       .185 
LXXV.  THE  ESCAPE  FROM  DESPONDENCY         .      187 
LXXVI.  THE  DIFFICULTIES  OF  UNBELIEF       .       .  189 
LXX VI I.  KNOWING    GOD,  AND   BEING    KNOWN    OF 

HIM .192 

LXXVIII.  FREEDOM  IN  THE  TRUTH     .       .       .       .195 
LXXIX.  THE  SOIL  AND  THE  SEED        ...      198 

LXXX.  THE  LORD'S  PRAYER:  1 201 

LXXXI.  THE  LORD'S  PRAYER:  II.  OUR  FATHER       203 
LXXXII.  THE  LORD'S  PRAYER  :  IIL    FATHER  AND 

SON   ........      205 

LXXXIII.  THE  LORD'S  PRAYER:  IV.    HALLOWED  BE 

THY  NAME         .       .       .       .       .       .  207 

LXXXIV.  THE  LORD'S   PRAYER:     V.    THY    KING- 
DOM  COME 209 

LXXXV.  THE  LORD'S  PRAYER:  VI.  THY  WILL  BE 

DONE 211 

LXXXVI.  THE  LORD'S  PRAYER:  VII.  DAILY  BREAD  213 

LXXXVII.  THE  LORD'S  PRAYER:  VIII.  FORGIVENESS  215 

LXXXVIII.  THE  LORD'S  PRAYER:  IX.  TEMPTATIONS.  217 

LXXXIX.  SIMPLICITY  TOWARD  CHRIST    .       .       .      219 

XC.  OPEN  OUR  EYES 222 

XCI.  THE  WORD  MADE  FLESH  ....      224 

LIST  OF  BIBLE  PASSAGES 227 


tfiormngs  in  tljc  College  Cljapci 


i 

THE  CLOUD  OF  WITNESSES 

Hebrews  xii.  i. 
(FIRST  DAY  OF  COLLEGE  TERM) 

!O  one  can  look  for  the  first  time  into 
the  faces  of  a  congregation  like  this 
without  thinking,  first  of  all,  of  the 
great  multitude  of  other  lives  whose  love  and 
sacrifice  are  represented  here.  Almost  every 
single  life  which  enters  our  chapel  is  the 
focus  of  interest  for  a  whole  domestic  circle, 
whose  prayers  and  anxieties,  whose  hopes 
and  ambitions,  are  turning  toward  this  place 
from  every  region  of  this  land.  Out  from 
behind  our  congregation  stands  in  the  back- 
ground a  cloud  of  witnesses  in  whose  pres- 
ence we  meet.  There  are  the  fathers,  earn- 
ing and  saving,  that  the  sons  may  have  a 


in  t&e  College 

better  chance  than  they ;  there  are  the  mo- 
thers with  their  prayers  and  sacrifices ;  there 
are  the  rich  parents,  trembling  lest  wealth 
may  be  a  snare  to  their  sons ;  and  the  humble 
homes  with  their  daily  deeds  of  self-denial  for 
the  sake  of  the  boys  who  come  to  us  here. 
When  we  meet  in  this  chapel  we  are  never 
alone.  We  are  the  centre  of  a  great  company 
of  observant  hearts.  And  then,  behind  us  all, 
there  is  the  still  larger  fellowship  of  the  past, 
the  historic  traditions  of  the  university,  the 
men  who  have  adorned  it,  the  inheritances 
into  which  we  freely  enter,  the  witnesses  of 
a  long  and  honorable  associated  life. 

Now  this  great  company  of  witnesses  does 
two  things  for  us.  On  the  one  hand,  it  brings 
responsibility.  The  apostle  says  in  this  pas- 
sage, "  that  apart  from  us  they  should  not  be 
made  perfect."  Every  work  of  the  past  is  in- 
complete unless  the  present  sustains  it.  We 
are  responsible  for  this  rich  tradition.  We 
inherit  the  gift  to  use  or  to  mar.  But,  on  the 
other  hand,  the  cloud  of  witnesses  is  what  con- 
tributes courage.  It  sustains  you  to  know  that 
you  represent  so  much  confidence  and  trust. 
It  is  strengthening  to  enter  into  this  rich  in- 
heritance. You  do  not  have  to  begin  things 


in  t&e  College  €&apel 

here.  You  only  have  to  keep  them  moving. 
It  is  a  great  blessing  to  be  taken  up  thus  out 
of  solitude  into  the  companionship  of  generous 
souls.  Let  us  begin  the  year  soberly  but 
bravely.  Surrounded  by  this  cloud  of  wit- 
nesses, let  us  lay  aside  every  weight,  and  the 
sin  which  most  easily  besets  us,  and  let  us  run 
with  patience  the  race  that  is  immediately  set 
before  us  in  the  swiftly  passing  days  of  this 
college  year. 

3 


in  tfoe  Holiest  Cfjapri 


II 

"NOT  TO  BE  MINISTERED  UNTO,  BUT 
TO  MINISTER" 

Mark  x.  35-45. 

rIE  disciples  in  this  passage  were 
looking  at  their  faith  to  see  what 
they  could  get  out  of  it.  They 
wanted  to  be  assured  of  a  prize  before  they 
took  a  risk.  They  came  to  Jesus  saying :  "  We 
would  that  Thou  shouldest  do  for  us  whatever 
we  ask."  But  Jesus  bids  them  to  consider 
rather  what  they  can  do  for  their  faith. 
"Whosoever,"  He  says,  "would  be  first,  is  to 
be  the  servant  for  all,  for  even  the  Son  of 
man  comes  not  to  be  ministered  unto,  but  to 
minister."  I  suppose  that  when  a  man  faces 
a  new  year  of  college  life,  his  first  thought  is 
of  what  it  can  do  for  him.  He  has  studied 
the  college  programme,  asking  himself : 
"  What  can  I  get  out  of  this  ?  "  and  now  he 
looks  into  the  year,  with  all  its  unknown 
chances,  and  asks  of  it :  "  O  unknown  year, 
what  happiness  and  friendship  and  instruction 
may  I  get  from  you  ?  Will  you  not  bring  to 
4 


fflornmgs  in  tfjc  College  Chapel 

pass  what  I  desire?  I  would  that  thou 
shouldest  do  for  me  whatever  I  ask."  Then 
the  spirit  of  Jesus  Christ  meets  him  here  and 
turns  his  question  round  :  "  What  are  you 
going  to  do  for  the  college  during  this  com- 
ing year  ?  Are  you  going  to  help  us  in  our 
morals,  in  our  intellectual  life,  in  our  religion  ? 
Are  you  going  to  contribute  to  the  higher  life 
of  the  university  ?  For  what  do  you  come 
here,  —  to  be  ministered  unto,  or  to  minis- 
ter ? " 

Of  course  a  man  may  answer  that  this  is 
an  impossible  test ;  that  there  is  nothing  that 
he  can  give  to  a  great  place  like  this,  and 
everything  he  can  receive.  But  he  little 
knows  how  the  college  from  year  to  year 
gets  marked  for  good  or  evil  by  a  class,  or  a 
group  within  a  class,  or  sometimes  a  few  per- 
sons, as  they  pass  in  and  out  of  our  gates. 
Sometimes  a  group  of  young  men  live  for  a 
few  years  among  us  and  leave  behind  them 
a  positively  malarial  influence ;  and  some 
times  a  few  quiet  lives,  simply  and  modestly 
lived  among  us,  actually  sweeten  and  purify 
our  climate  for  years  together.  And  so  in 
the  quiet  of  our  prayers  we  give  ourselves, 
not  to  be  ministered  unto,  but  to  minister. 
5 


in  tfjc  College 

Nowhere  in  the  world  is  it  more  true  that  we 
are  members  one  of  another,  and  that  the 
whole  vast  institutional  life  is  affected  by 
each  slightest  individual.  Nowhere  in  this 
world  is  there  a  better  chance  to  purify  the 
spirit  and  tone,  either  of  work  or  of  sport, 
and  nowhere  can  a  man  discover  more  im- 
mediately the  happiness  of  being  of  use. 
The  recreation  and  the  religion,  the  study 
and  the  play,  of  our  associated  life,  are  wait- 
ing for  the  dedication  of  unassuming  Chris- 
tian men  to  a  life  which  offers  itself,  not  to 
be  ministered  unto,  but  to  minister. 
6 


in  tljc  College 

III 

THE  TRANSMISSION  OF  POWER 
John  xvii.  22. 

| HIS  was  the  glory  which  Jesus  Christ 
claimed  for  himself — to  take  the  glory 
of  God  and  glorify  with  it  the  life  of 
man.  "  The  glory  that  thou  hast  given  me  I 
have  given  them."  It  was  not  a  glory  of  pos- 
session, but  a  glory  of  transmission.  It  was 
not  his  capacity  to  receive  which  glorified  him, 
it  was  his  capacity  to  give.  In  most  of  the 
great  pictures  of  the  glorified  Christ  there  is 
a  halo  of  light  encircling  and  illuminating  his 
face.  That  is  the  fictitious  glory,  the  glory 
of  possession.  In  a  few  such  paintings  the 
light  streams  from  the  Master's  face  to  illu- 
minate the  other  figures  of  the  scene.  That 
is  the  real  glory,  the  glory  of  transmission. 

And  such  is  the  only  glory  in  life.  A  man 
looks  at  learning  or  power  or  refinement  or 
wealth  and  says :  "  This  is  glory ;  this  is 
success ;  this  is  the  pride  of  life."  But  there 
is  really  nothing  glorious  about  possession. 
It  may  be  most  inglorious  and  mean, —  as 
7 


in  t&e  College  Cbapcl 

mean  when  the  possession  is  brains  or  power 
as  when  it  is  bonds  or  wheat.  Indeed,  there 
is  rarely  much  that  is  glorious  or  great  about 
so  slight  or  evanescent  a  thing  as  a  human 
life.  The  glory  of  it  lies  in  its  being  able  to 
say,  "  The  glory  that  thou  hast  given  me  I 
give  to  them."  The  worth  of  life  is  in  its 
transmissive  capacity.  In  the  wonderful  sys- 
tem of  the  telephone  with  its  miracle  of 
intercommunication  there  is,  as  you  know,  at 
each  instrument  that  little  film  of  metal 
which  we  call  the  transmitter,  into  which  the 
message  is  delivered,  and  whose  vibrations 
are  repeated  scores  of  miles  away.  Each 
human  life  is  a  transmitter.  Take  it  away 
from  its  transmissive  purpose,  and  what  a 
poor  insignificant  film  a  human  life  may  be. 
But  set  it  where  it  belongs,  hi  the  great  sys- 
tem where  it  has  its  part,  and  that  insignifi- 
cant film  is  dignified  with  a  new  significance. 
It  is  as  if  it  said  to  its  God  :  "  The  message 
which  Thou  givest  me  I  give  to  them,"  and 
every  word  of  God  that  is  spoken  into  it  is 
delivered  through  it  to  the  lives  that  are 
wearily  waiting  for  the  message  as  though  it 
were  far  away. 

8 


in  tljf  College 

IV 

LET  YOUR  LIGHT  SHINE 
Matthew  v.  16. 

the  first  reading  there  certainly 
seems  to  be  something  of  self-asser- 
tion and  self-display  about  this  pas- 
sage, as  if  it  said  :  "  Let  your  light  so  shine 
that  people  may  see  how  much  good  you  do." 
But,  of  course,  nothing  could  be  farther  than 
this  from  the  spirit  of  Jesus.  Indeed,  his 
meaning  is  the  precise  opposite  of  this.  For  he 
is  speaking  not  of  a  light  which  is  to  illumi- 
nate you,  but  of  a  light  which  is  to  shine  from 
you  upon  your  works  ;  so  that  they,  and  not 
you,  are  seen,  and  the  glory  is  given,  not  to 
you,  but  to  God.  Such  a  light  will  hide  you 
rather  than  exhibit  you,  as  when  one  holds  a 
lantern  before  him  on  some  dark  road,  so  that 
while  the  bearer  of  the  lantern  is  in  the  dark- 
ness, the  path  before  him  is  thrown  into  the 
light.  The  passage,  then,  which  seems  to 
suggest  a  doctrine  of  self-display,  is  really  a 
teaching  of  self-effacement.  Here  is  a  rail- 
way-train thundering  along  some  evening  to- 
9 


in  t&e  College  C&apel 

ward  a  broken  bridge,  and  the  track-walker 
rushes  toward  it  with  his  swinging  lantern,  as 
though  he  had  heard  the  great  command, 
"  Let  your  light  shine  before  men  ;  "  and  the 
train  comes  to  a  stop  and  the  passengers  stream 
out  and  see  the  peril  that  they  have  just  es- 
caped, and  give  thanks  to  their  Father  which 
is  in  heaven.  And  this  is  the  reward  of  the 
plain,  unnoticed  man  as  he  trudges  home  in 
the  dark, —  that  he  has  done  his  duty  well 
that  night  He  has  not  been  seen  or  praised ; 
he  has  been  in  the  shadow  ;  but  he  has  been 
permitted  to  let  his  little  light  shine  and  save ; 
and  he  too  gives  thanks  to  his  Father  in 
heaven. 

Here,  again,  is  a  lighthouse-keeper  on  the 
coast.  The  sailor  in  the  darkness  cannot 
see  the  keeper,  unless  indeed  the  shadow  of 
the  keeper  obscures  for  a  moment  the  light. 
What  the  sailor  sees  is  the  light ;  and  he 
thanks,  not  the  keeper,  but  the  power  that 
put  the  light  on  that  dangerous  rock.  So  the 
light-keeper  tends  his  light  in  the  dark,  and  a 
very  lonely  and  obscure  life  it  is.  No  one 
mounts  the  rock  to  praise  him.  The  vessels 
pass  in  the  night  with  never  a  word  of  cheer. 
But  the  life  of  the  keeper  gets  its  dignity,  not 
10 


in  t&e  College  C&aprt 

because  he  shines,  but  because  his  light 
guides  other  lives  ;  and  many  a  weary  captain 
greets  that  twinkling  light  across  the  sea,  and 
seeing  its  good  work  gives  thanks  to  his 
Father  which  is  in  heaven. 
ii 


Jttoroinpt  in  t&e  Collcse  Cfiapel 

v 

THE  CENTURION 
Matthew  viii.  5-11. 

>NE  of  the  most  interesting  things  to 
observe  in  the  New  Testament  is  the 
series  of  persons  who  just  come  into 
sight  for  a  moment  through  their  relation  to 
the  life  of  Jesus  Christ,  and  are,  as  it  were, 
illuminated  by  that  relationship,  and  then,  as 
they  pass  out  of  the  light  again,  disappear 
into  obscurity.  They  are  like  some  western- 
fronting  window  on  which  the  slanting  sun 
shines  for  a  moment,  so  that  we  see  the  re- 
flection miles  away.  Then,  with  the  same 
suddenness,  the  angle  of  reflection  changes, 
and  the  window  grows  dark  and  insignificant 
once  more.  This  centurion  was  such  a  per- 
son. Jesus  perhaps  never  met  him  before, 
and  we  never  hear  of  him  again,  and  yet,  in 
the  single  phrase,  "  I  have  not  found  so  great 
faith,  no,  not  in  Israel,"  Jesus  stamps  him 
with  a  special  character  and  welcomes  him 
with  a  peculiar  confidence.  How  is  it  that 
there  is  given  to  him  this  abrupt  commenda- 

12 


in  tfte  Collrgc 

tion  ?  Why  does  Jesus  say  that  he  shows  more 
faith  than  Israel  itself?  It  was,  of  course, 
because  of  the  man's  attitude  of  mind.  He 
comes  to  Jesus  just  as  a  soldier  comes  to  his 
superior  officer.  He  has  been  disciplined  to 
obedience,  and  that  habit  of  obedience  to  his 
own  superiors  is  what  gives  him  in  his  turn 
authority.  He  obeys,  and  he  expects  to  be 
obeyed.  He  is  under  authority,  and  so  he  has 
authority  over  his  own  troops,  and  says  to  one 
soldier  Go,  and  to  another  Come,  and  they 
obey.  Now  Jesus  sees  in  an  instant  that  this 
is  just  what  he  wants  of  his  disciples.  What 
discipline  is  to  a  soldier,  faith  is  to  a  Christian. 
A  religious  man  is  a  man  who  is  under 
authority.  He  goes  to  his  commander  and 
gets  orders  for  the  day.  He  does  not  pretend 
to  know  everything  about  his  commander's 
plans.  It  is  not  for  him  to  arrange  the  great 
campaign.  It  is  for  him  only  to  obey  in  his 
own  place,  and  to  take  his  own  part  in  the 
great  design.  Perhaps  in  the  little  skirmish 
in  which  he  is  involved  there  may  be  defeat, 
but  perhaps  that  defeat  is  to  count  in  the  vic- 
tory for  the  larger  plan.  Thus  the  religious 
man  does  not  serve  on  his  own  account.  He 
is  in  the  hands  of  a  general,  who  overlooks 
13 


in  t&e  Colteffe  Chapel 

the  whole  field.  And  that  sense  of  being 
under  authority  is  what  gives  the  religious 
man  authority  in  his  turn.  He  is  not  the 
slave  of  his  circumstances ;  he  is  the  master 
of  them.  He  takes  command  of  his  own  de- 
tachment of  life,  because  he  has  received 
command  from  the  Master  of  all  life.  He 
says  to  his  passions,  Go ;  and  to  his  virtues, 
Come ;  and  to  his  duty,  Do  this ;  and  the 
whole  little  company  of  his  own  ambitions 
and  desires  fall  into  line  behind  him,  because 
he  is  himself  a  man  under  authority.  That  is 
a  soldier's  discipline,  and  that  is  a  Christian's 
faith. 

14 


in  tfc  College 

VI 

SPIRITUAL  ATHLETICS 
i   Timothy  iv.  8. 

JERE  is  this  great  man  writing  to  his 
young  friend,  whom  he  calls  "his 
own  son  in  the  faith,"  and  describing 
religion  as  a  branch  of  athletics.  Bodily  ex- 
ercise, he  says,  profiteth  somewhat.  It  is  as 
if  an  old  man  were  writing  to  a  young  man  to- 
day, and  should  begin  by  saying :  "  Do  not 
neglect  your  bodily  health  ;  take  exercise 
daily;  go  to  the  gymnasium."  But  spiritual 
exercise,  this  writer  goes  on,  has  this  superior 
quality,  that  it  is  good  for  both  worlds,  both 
for  that  which  now  is,  and  that  which  is  to 
come.  Therefore,  "exercise  unto  godliness." 
"Take  up  those  forms  of  spiritual  athletics 
which  develop  and  discipline  the  soul.  Keep 
your  soul  in  training.  Be  sure  that  you  are 
in  good  spiritual  condition,  ready  for  the 
strain  and  effort  which  life  is  sure  to  demand." 
We  are  often  told  in  our  day  that  the 
athletic  ideal  is  developed  to  excess,  but  the 
teaching  of  this  passage  is  just  the  opposite  of 


in  tbc  College  Cbapcl 

the  modern  warning.  Paul  tells  this  young 
man  that  he  has  not  begun  to  realize  the  full 
scope  of  the  athletic  ideal.  Is  not  this  the 
real  difficulty  now  ?  We  have,  it  is  true, 
come  to  appreciate  exercise  so  far  as  concerns 
the  body,  and  any  healthy-minded  young  man 
to-day  is  almost  ashamed  of  himself  if  he  has 
not  a  well  developed  body,  the  ready  servant 
of  an  active  will.  We  have  even  begun  to 
appreciate  the  analogy  of  body  and  mind,  and 
to  perceive  that  the  exercise  and  discipline  of 
the  mind,  like  that  of  the  body,  reproduces  its 
power.  Much  of  the  study  which  one  does 
in  his  education  is  done  with  precisely  the 
same  motive  with  which  one  pulls  his  weights 
and  swings  his  clubs  ;  not  primarily  for  the 
love  of  the  things  studied,  but  for  the  disci- 
pline and  intellectual  athletics  they  promote. 
And  yet  it  remains  true  that  a  great  many 
people  fancy  that  the  soul  can  be  left  without 
exercise  ;  that  indeed  it  is  a  sort  of  invalid, 
which  needs  to  be  sheltered  from  exposure 
and  kept  indoors  in  a  sort  of  limp,  shut-in 
condition.  There  are  young  men  in  the 
college  world  who  seem  to  feel  that  the  life 
of  faith  is  too  delicate  to  be  exposed  to  the 
sharp  climate  of  the  world  of  scholarship  and 
16 


in  t(jc  Collcffe  Onprl 

have  not  begun  to  think  of  it  as  strengthened 
by  exposure  and  fortified  by  resistance. 

Now  the  apostolic  doctrine  is  this  :  "  You 
do  not  grow  strong  in  body  or  in  mind 
without  discipline  and  exercise.  The  same 
athletic  demand  is  made  on  your  soul."  All 
through  the  writings  of  this  vigorous,  mascu- 
line, robust  adviser  of  young  men,  you  find 
him  taking  the  athletic  position.  Now  he  is 
a  boxer  :  "  So  fight  I  not  as  one  that  beateth 
the  air."  Now  he  is  a  runner,  looking  not  to 
the  things  that  are  behind,  but  to  the  things 
before,  and  running,  not  in  one  sharp  dash, 
but,  with  patience,  the  race  set  before  him. 
It  is  just  as  athletic  a  performance,  he  thinks, 
to  wrestle  with  the  princes  of  the  darkness  of 
this  world,  as  to  wrestle  with  a  champion. 
It  needs  just  as  rigorous  a  training  to  pull 
against  circumstances  as  to  pull  against  time. 
It  appears  to  him  at  least  not  unreasonable 
that  the  supreme  interest  of  an  immortal  soul 
should  have  from  a  man  as  much  attention 
and  development  as  a  man  gives  to  his  legs, 
or  his  muscle,  or  his  wind. 
17 


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VII 

THE  RHYTHM   OF  LIFE 
Matthew  xiv.  23. 

JNE  of  the  most  striking  passages  in 
modern  literature  is  the  paragraph 
in  Mr.  Spencer's  First  Principles,  in 
which  he  describes  the  rhythm  of  motion. 
Motion,  he  says,  though  it  seems  to  be  con- 
tinuous and  steady,  is  in  fact  pulsating,  un- 
dulatory,  rhythmic.  There  is  everywhere  in- 
termittent action  and  rest.  The  flag  blown 
by  the  breeze  floats  out  in  undulations  ;  then 
the  branches  oscillate ;  then  the  trees  begin 
to  sway;  everywhere  there  is  action  and 
pause,  the  rhythm  of  motion. 

The  same  law  holds  good  of  the  conduct  of 
life.  Its  .natural  method  is  rhythmic,  inter- 
mittent, work  alternating  with  rest,  activity 
and  receptivity  succeeding  one  another,  the 
rhythm  of  life.  The  steady  strain,  the  contin- 
uous uniformity  of  life,  is  what  kills.  Work 
unrelieved  by  play,  and  play  unrefreshed  by 
work,  grow  equally  stale  and  dull.  Activity 
without  reflection  loses  its  grasp ;  meditation 
18 


in  t$e  Colics?  Cbapcl 

without  action  sinks  into  a  dream-  Jesus  in 
this  passage  had  been  absorbed  in  the  most 
active  and  outward-going  ministry ;  and  then, 
as  the  evening  comes,  he  turns  away  and  goes 
up  into  the  mountain  and  is  there  alone  in 
prayer. 

We  need  to  take  account  of  this  law  of  the 
rhythm  of  life.  Most  of  the  time  we  are 
very  much  absorbed  in  busy,  outward-looking 
activity,  overwhelmed  with  engagements  and 
hurry  and  worry ;  and  then  in  the  midst  of 
this  active  life  there  stands  the  chapel  with 
its  summons  to  us  to  pause  and  give  the  re- 
flective life  its  chance.  That  is  one  of  the 
chief  offices  of  religion  in  this  preposterously 
busy  age.  Religion  gives  one  at  least  a 
chance  to  stop  and  let  God  speak  to  him. 
It  sends  the  multitudes  away  and  takes  one 
up  into  the  solitude  of  the  soul's  communica- 
tion with  God.  One  of  our  Cambridge  natu- 
ralists told  me  once  of  an  experiment  he  had 
made  with  a  pigeon.  The  bird  had  been  born 
in  a  cage  and  had  never  been  free  ;  and  one 
day  his  owner  took  him  out  on  the  porch  of 
the  house  and  flung  the  bird  into  the  air.  To 
the  naturalist's  surprise  the  bird's  capacity  for 
flight  was  perfect.  Round  and  round  he  flew 
'9 


as  if  born  in  the  air ;  but  soon  his  flight  grew 
excited,  panting,  and  his  circles  grew  smaller, 
until  at  last  he  dashed  full  against  his  master's 
breast  and  fell  on  the  ground.  What  did  it 
mean  ?  It  meant  that,  though  the  bird  had 
inherited  the  instinct  for  flight,  he  had  not 
inherited  the  capacity  to  stop,  and  if  he  had 
not  risked  the  shock  of  a  sudden  halt,  he 
would  have  panted  his  little  life  out  in  the 
air.  Is  not  that  a  parable  of  many  a  modern 
life,  —  completely  endowed  with  the  instinct 
of  action,  but  without  the  capacity  to  stop  ? 
Round  and  round  life  goes,  in  its  weary  cir- 
cle, until  it  is  almost  dying  at  full  speed. 
Any  shock,  even  some  severe  experience,  is 
a  mercy  if  it  checks  this  whirl.  Sometimes 
God  stops  such  a  soul  abruptly  by  some 
sharp  blow  of  trouble,  and  the  soul  falls  in 
despair  at  his  feet,  and  then  He  bends  over 
it  and  says  :  "  Be  still  my  child ;  be  still,  and 
know  that  I  am  God  !  "  until  by  degrees  the 
despair  of  trouble  is  changed  into  submission 
and  obedience,  and  the  poor,  weary,  fluttering 
life  is  made  strong  to  fly  again. 
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in  t&r  ColUffe  Cljapcl 

VIII 

"THAT  OTHER  DISCIPLE" 
John  xx.  8. 

f.BOUT  fifty  years  ago,  one  of  the 
most  distinguished  of  New  Eng- 
land preachers,  Horace  Bushnell, 
preached  a  very  famous  sermon  on  the  sub- 
ject of  "  Unconscious  Influence,"  taking  for 
his  text  this  verse :  "  Then  went  in  also  that 
other  disciple."  The  two  disciples  had  come 
together,  as  the  passage  says,  to  the  sepul- 
chre, but  that  other  disciple,  though  he  came 
first,  hesitated  to  go  in,  until  the  impetuous 
Peter  led  the  way,  and  "then  went  in  also 
that  other  disciple." 

There  are  always  these  two  ways  of  exert- 
ing an  influence  on  another's  life,  the  ways  of 
conscious  and  unconscious  influence.  A  few 
persons  in  a  community  have  the  strength  of 
positive  leadership.  They  devise  and  guide 
public  opinion,  and  may  be  fairly  described 
as  personal  influences.  But  such  real  leaders 
are  few.  Most  of  us  cannot  expect  to  stand 
in  our  community  like  the  centurion  of  the 
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in  t&e  College 

Gospel  and  say  to  one  man  :  Come,  and  he 
cometh  ;  and  to  another :  Go,  and  he  goeth ; 
and  to  a  third :  Do  this,  and  he  doeth  it. 
Most  of  us  must  take  to  ourselves  what  one 
of  our  professors  said  to  a  body  of  students  : 
"  Be  sure  to  lend  your  influence  to  any  good 
object ;  but  do  not  lend  your  influence  until 
you  have  it."  On  the  other  hand,  however, 
there  is  for  all  of  us  an  unavoidable  kind  of 
influence ;  the  unconscious  effect  on  another's 
life,  made  not  by  him  who  preaches,  or  poses, 
or  undertakes  to  be  a  missionary,  but  simply 
by  the  man  who  goes  his  own  way,  and  so 
demonstrates  that  it  is  the  best  way  for 
others  to  follow.  That  is  what  Laurence  Oli- 
phant  once  called,  "living  the  life ; "  the  kind 
of  conduct  which  does  not  drive,  but  draws. 

Peter  might  have  stood  before  the  sepul- 
chre, and  tried  all  in  vain  to  influence  and 
urge  his  friend  to  come  in  with  him,  but  in- 
stead of  this  he  simply  enters,  and  then,  with- 
out any  conscious  persuasion  on  his  part,  that 
other  disciple  enters  too.  So  it  is  that  a  man 
to-day  just  takes  his  stand  among  us  in  some 
issue  of  duty,  not  dragging  in  allies  to  help 
him,  but  quietly  standing  on  his  own  isolated 
conviction,  and  some  day  "that  other  dis- 
22 


in  tljc  College 

ciple  "  just  comes  and  stands  by  him  for  the 
right.  Or  a  man  is  passing  some  morning 
the  door  of  this  Chapel,  and  just  slips  in  and 
says  his  prayer,  and  falls  into  the  habit  of 
worship  from  which  he  had  of  late  been  fall- 
ing out,  and  some  day  as  he  sits  here,  as  he 
supposes,  quite  out  of  the  circle  of  his  friends, 
he  turns  and  finds  "  that  other  disciple  "  sit- 
ting by  his  side.  Or  a  man  enters  just  a 
little  way  into  the  power  of  the  religious  life, 
just  enough  to  feel  how  incomplete  is  his 
faith,  and  how  little  he  can  do  for  any  one 
else,  and  one  day  as  he  gropes  his  way  toward 
the  light  he  feels  a  hand  reaching  out  to  his, 
and  "that  other  disciple"  gives  himself  to  be 
guided  by  the  strength  which  had  seemed  to 
its  possessor  until  that  moment  weakness. 
Here  is  the  encouragement  and  the  interpre- 
tation of  many  an  insignificant  and  apparently 
ineffective  life.  Positive  and  predetermined 
influence  few  of  us  can  boast  of  possessing, 
but  this  unconscious  influence  not  one  of  us 
can  escape.  And  indeed,  that  is  the  pro- 
founder  leadership  even  of  the  greatest  souls. 
One  of  the  most  extraordinary  traits  in  the 
ministry  of  Jesus  Christ  is  his  undesigned 
persuasiveness.  He  does  not  seem  to  expect 


in  tljc  College  Cljnpcl 

a  generally  accepted  influence.  He  recognizes 
that  there  are  whole  groups  of  souls  whom 
he  cannot  reach.  Only  they  who  have  ears 
to  hear,  he  says,  can  hear  him.  He  just 
goes  his  own  great  way,  misinterpreted,  per- 
secuted ;  and  at  last  the  world  perceives  that 
it  is  the  way  to  go,  and  falls  into  line  behind 
him.  When  he  puts  forth  his  sheep,  he  goes 
before  them,  and  they  follow  him.  It  is 
simply  the  contagion  of  personality,  the  mag- 
netism of  soul,  the  spiritual  law  of  attraction, 
which  draws  a  little  soul  toward  a  great  soul, 
as  a  planet  is  drawn  in  its  orbit  round  the 
sun. 

24 


(n  tjjc  College 

IX 

MORAL  TIMIDITY 
John  xxi.  22. 


trouble  with  Peter  in  this  passage 
is  the  sense  of  his  own  incapacity. 
£i  Jesus  comes  to  him  with  the  great 
command  :  "  Feed  my  lambs  ;  feed  my 
sheep  ;  "  as  though  Peter  were  appointed  to 
take  the  lead  among  his  followers.  And 
then  Peter  shrinks  back,  not  because  of  dis- 
inclination, but  because  of  sheer  self-distrust. 
Who  is  he  that  he  should  assume  the  leader- 
ship ?  He  has  failed  once,  perhaps  he  may 
fail  again.  "  Lord,"  he  says,  "  there  is  John  ; 
is  not  he  the  man  to  lead  ?  He  never  made  a 
mistake  as  I  did.  What  is  he  to  do  ?  "  And 
then  Jesus  says  :  "  What  is  that  to  thee  ?  The 
question  is  not  whether  you  are  the  best  man 
to  do  this  thing.  You  are  simply  called  to  do 
it  as  best  you  can.  If  I  will  that  he  tarry 
till  I  come,  what  is  that  to  thee  ?  Follow 
thou  me." 

There  is  a  great  deal  of  this  moral  timidity 
in  college  life.     Any  man  of  reasonable  mod- 
25 


in  tl)t  College  Cbapcl 

esty  sees  about  him  plenty  of  men  better  able 
to  be  leaders  in  good  service  than  he  is.  It 
seems  audacious  for  him  to  pose  as  fit  to  lead. 
"There  is  John,"  he  says,  "a  far  better  man 
than  I ;  what  is  he  to  do  ? "  Then  the  spirit  of 
Jesus  again  answers  :  "  What  is  that  to  thee  ?  " 
Here  is  the  thing  to  be  done,  the  stand  to  be 
taken,  and  here  are  you.  Of  course,  there  is 
much  that  you  cannot  do.  Of  course  there 
are  many  that  might  do  it  better.  But  the 
call  happens  to  be  to  you  :  "Follow  thou  me." 
It  is  not  a  call  to  any  exciting  or  dramatic  ser- 
vice. It  is  simply  the  demand  that  one  takes 
his  life  just  as  it  is,  and  gives  it  as  he  can  to 
the  service  of  Christ.  "  Feed  my  sheep,  feed 
my  lambs ; "  give  yourself  to  humble  and 
modest  service  ;  live  your  own  life  without 
much  anticipation  of  influence  or  effective- 
ness ;  with  all  your  insufficiency  and  frequent 
stumbling,  follow  thou  me  ;  and  in  that  simple 
following  you  are  showing  better  than  by  all 
eloquence  or  argument  how  others  ought  to 
go,  and  you  are  helping  and  strengthening  us 

all. 

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in  the  CoIIcffc  Chapel 


THE  HEAVENLY  VISION 
Acts  xx  vi.  19. 

[HE  great  transformation  in  St.  Paul 
from  a  persecutor  to  an  apostle  of 
Christianity  was  a  sudden  revelation. 
He  saw  a  heavenly  vision  and  was  not  dis- 
obedient unto  it.  But  this  is  not  the  common 
way  of  life.  It  does  not  often  happen  that 
character  is  transformed  and  the  great  deci- 
sion irrevocably  made  in  an  instant  It  is  not 
as  a  rule  true  that  :  — 

"  Once  to  every  man  and  nation  comes  the  moment  to  decide, 
In  the  strife  of  truth  with  falsehood,  for  the  good  or  evil  side." 

Most  lives  proceed  more  evenly,  without  any 
such  catastrophic  change.  And  yet,  it  is 
none  the  less  true  that  in  a  very  large  pro- 
portion of  lives  there  come,  now  and  then,  in 
the  midst  of  routine  and  uniformity,  certain 
flashes  of  clearer  vision,  disclosing  the  aims 
and  ideals  of  life,  as  though  one  should  be 
traveling  in  a  fog  along  a  hillside,  and  now 
and  then  the  breeze  should  sweep  the  mist 
away,  and  the  road  and  its  end  be  clear. 

27 


in  the  College 

Now,  loyalty  to  such  a  vision  is  the  chief 
source  of  strength  and  satisfaction  in  a  man's 
life.  Sometimes  a  young  man  comes  to  an 
old  one  for  counsel  about  his  calling  in  life, 
and  the  young  man  sums  up  his  gifts  and 
capacities  and  defects.  He  will  be  a  lawyer 
because  he  has  a  turn  for  disputation,  or  an 
engineer  because  he  is  good  at  figures,  or  a 
minister  because  he  likes  the  higher  litera- 
ture. All  such  considerations  have,  of  course, 
their  place.  But  by  no  such  intellectual  ana- 
lysis is  the  fundamental  question  met.  Many 
men  fail  in  their  lives  in  spite  of  great  gifts, 
and  many  men  succeed  in  spite  of  great  de- 
fects. The  fundamental  question  is :  "  Has 
this  young  man  had  a  vision  of  what  he  wants 
to  do  ?  Has  a  great  desire  disclosed  itself  to 
his  heart  ?  Has  the  breeze  of  God  blown 
away  the  mists  of  his  confusion  and  shown 
him  his  ideal,  very  far  away  perhaps,  yet 
unmistakable  and  clear  ? "  Then,  with  all  rea- 
sonable allowance  for  gifts  and  faults,  the 
straighter  he  heads  toward  that  ideal  the  hap- 
pier and  the  more  effective  he  is  likely  to  be. 
When  he  thus  follows  his  heart,  he  is  work- 
ing along  the  line  of  least  resistance;  and 
when  his  little  work  is  done,  however  meagre 
28 


f-Honunjs  in  tbc  Collect 

and  unimportant  it  may  be,  he  can  at  least 
give  it  back  to  God,  who  gave  it  to  him  to 
do,  and  say :  I  was  not  disobedient  unto  the 

heavenly  vision." 

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in  t&e  College 


John  vi.  35.     Revelation  xxii.  17 

JERE,  in  the  Gospel,  the  message  of 
Christ  is  described  as  the  bread  of  life, 
and,  here,  again,  in  the  Book  of  Reve- 
lation, as  the  water  of  life.  Bread  and  water 
—  the  very  plainest,  most  essential,  every-day 
needs,  the  forms  of  nourishment  of  which  we 
rarely  think  with  gratitude,  but  which  on  no 
day  we  go  without. 

A  great  many  people  seem  to  think  that 
religion  is  a  kind  of  luxury  hi  life,  a  Sunday 
delicacy,  an  educated  taste,  an  unessential 
food,  which  one  can,  at  his  discretion,  take  or 
go  without.  But  to  Jesus  Christ  religion  is 
no  such  super-imposed  accessory ;  it  is  simply 
bread  and  water,  the  daily  necessity,  the  fun- 
damental food,  the  universally  essential  and 
normal  satisfaction  of  the  natural  hunger  and 
the  human  thirst.  Let  us,  of  all  things,  hold 
fast  to  the  naturalness,  simplicity,  and  whole- 
someness  of  the  religious  life.  Religion  is  not 
a  luxury  added  to  the  normal  life ;  it  is  the 
30 


in  tbc  CoUeje 

rational  attitude  of  the  soul  in  its  relation  to 
the  universe  of  God.  It  is  not  an  accident 
that  the  central  sacrament  of  the  Christian 
life  is  the  sacrament  of  daily  food  and  drink. 
This  do,  says  the  Master,  so  oft  as  ye  eat  and 
drink  it,  in  remembrance  of  me. 

And  how  elementary  are  the  sources  of  re- 
ligious confidence  !  They  lie,  not  in  remote 
or  difficult  regions  of  authority,  or  conformity, 
or  history,  but  in  the  witness  of  daily  service, 
and  of  commonplace  endeavor.  "  The  word 
is  very  nigh  thee,"  says  the  Old  Testament. 
The  satisfying  revelation  of  God  reaches  you, 
not  in  the  exceptional,  occasional,  and  dra- 
matic incidents  of  life,  but  in  the  bread  and 
water  of  life  which  you  eat  and  drink  every 
day.  As  one  of  our  most  precious  American 
poets,  too  early  silent,  has  sung  of  the  routine 
of  life:  — 

"  Forenoon,  and  afternoon,  and  night !  —  Forenoon, 
And  afternoon,  and  night  I  —  Forenoon,  and  —  what  ? 
The  empty  song  repeats  itself.     No  more  ? 
Yea,  that  is  Life  :  make  this  forenoon  sublime, 
This  afternoon  a  psalm,  this  night  a  prayer, 
And  Time  is  conquered,  and  thy  crown  is  woo."  1 

1 E.  R.  SilL    Poems,  p.  27  "  Life." 

Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co.,  1888. 

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in  t&e  College  Cfcapel 

XH 
THE  RECOIL  OF  JUDGMENTS 

Matthew  vii.  i. 

>HEN  Jesus  says  "Judge  not  that  ye 
be  not  judged,"  he  cannot  be  for- 
bidding all  severity  of  judgment,  for 
no  one  could  be  on  occasion  more  severe,  or 
unsparing,  or  denunciatory  than  he.  "  Woe 
unto  you,  hypocrites,"  he  says  to  some  of  the 
respectable  church-leaders  of  his  time.  "  Be- 
ware of  false  prophets,"  he  says  in  this  pas- 
sage, "  for  they  are  inwardly  ravening  wolves." 
No,  Jesus  certainly  was  not  a  soft-spoken 
person  or  one  likely  to  plead  for  gentle  judg- 
ments so  as  to  get  kindness  in  return.  What 
he  is  in  fact  laying  down  in  this  passage  is  a 
much  prof ounder  principle,  —  the  principle  of 
the  recoil  of  judgments.  Your  judgments  of 
others  are  in  reality  the  most  complete  be- 
trayal of  yourself.  What  you  think  of  them 
is  the  key  to  your  own  soul  Your  careless 
utterances  are  like  the  boomerang  of  some 
clumsy  savage,  often  missing  the  mark  toward 
32 


fflorntnjs  in  the  College  Cbapcl 

which  it  is  thrown,  and  returning  to  smite  the 
man  that  threw  it. 

This  is  a  strange  reversal  of  the  common 
notion  in  which  we  think  of  our  relation  to 
other  lives.  We  fancy  that  another  life  is 
perfectly  interpretable  in  its  motives  and  aims, 
but  that  our  own  lives  are  much  disguised ; 
whereas  the  fact  is  that  nothing  is  more  mys- 
terious and  baffling  than  the  interior  purposes 
of  another  soul,  and  nothing  is  more  self- 
disclosed  and  transparent  than  the  nature  of 
a  judging  life.  One  man  goes  through  the 
world  and  finds  it  suspicious,  inclined  to 
wrong-doing,  full  of  capacity  for  evil,  and  he 
judges  it  with  his  ready  gossip  of  depreciation. 
He  may  be  in  all  this  reporting  what  is  true, 
or  he  may  be  stating  what  is  untrue  ;  but  one 
truth  he  is  reporting  with  entire  precision,  — 
the  fact  that  he  is  himself  a  suspicious  and 
ungenerous  man  ;  and  this  disclosure  of  his 
own  heart,  which,  if  another  hinted  at  it,  he 
would  resent,  he  is  without  any  disguise  mak- 
ing of  his  own  accord.  The  cynic  looks  over 
the  world  and  finds  it  hopelessly  bad,  but  the 
one  obvious  fact  is  not  that  the  world  is  all 
bad,  but  that  the  man  is  a  cynic.  The  snob 
looks  over  the  world  and  finds  it  hopelessly 
33 


in  the  College  Cbapcl 

vulgar,  but  the  fact  is  not  that  the  world  is 
all  vulgar,  but  that  the  man  is  a  snob.  The 
gentleman  walks  his  way  through  the  world, 
anticipating  just  dealing,  believing  in  his 
neighbor,  expecting  responsiveness  to  honor, 
considerateness,  high-mindedness,  and  he  is 
often  deceived  and  finds  his  confidence  mis- 
placed, and  sometimes  discovers  ruffians 
where  he  thought  there  were  gentlemen  ;  but 
this  at  least  he  has  proved,  —  that  he  himself 
is  a  gentleman.  Through  his  judgment  of 
others  he  is  himself  judged,  and  as  he  has 
measured  to  others,  so,  in  the  final  judgment 
of  him,  made  either  by  God  or  men,  it  shall 
be  measured  to  him  again. 
34 


to  *&'  College  C&apel 

XIII 

THE  INCIDENTAL 
Ztf/fcxvii.  5-15. 

they  went,  they  were  healed." 
The  cure  of  these  sick  men  was  not 
only  remarkable  in  itself,  but  still 
more  remarkable  because  of  the  way  in  which 
it  happened.  They  came  to  Jesus  crying: 
"  Master,  have  mercy  on  us,"  and  He  sends 
them  to  the  priest  that  they  might  show 
themselves  to  him  and  get  his  official  guaran- 
tee that  they  were  no  longer  lepers.  So  they 
must  have  expected  that  the  cure,  if  it  was  to 
come  at  all,  would  happen  either  under  the 
hands  of  Jesus  before  they  started,  or  under 
the  hands  of  the  high  priest  after  they  ar- 
rived. But  it  did  not  come  in  either  of  these 
ways.  As  they  went,  they  were  cleansed. 
Not  in  the  moment  of  Christ's  benediction, 
nor  yet  in  the  moment  of  ecclesiastical  recog- 
nition, but  just  between  the  two  they  were 
healed. 

There  is  something  like  this  very  often  in 
any  man's  deliverance  from  his  temptations 
35 


in  tfjc  College  Cliapcl 

or  cares  or  fears.  A  man,  for  instance,  sets 
himself  to  his  intellectual  task,  but  as  he 
studies  it  is  all  dark  about  him,  and  his  mind 
seems  dull  and  heavy,  and  no  light  shines 
upon  his  work,  and  he  goes  away  from  it  dis- 
couraged. But  then,  by  some  miracle  of  the 
mind's  working,  such  as  each  one  of  us  in  his 
own  way  has  experienced,  his  task  gets  solved 
for  him,  not  as  he  works  at  it,  but  as  he  turns 
to  other  things.  Suddenly  and  mysteriously, 
sometimes  between  the  night's  task  and  the 
morning's  waking,  his  problem  clears  up 
before  him,  and  as  he  goes,  his  mind  is 
cleansed.  So  a  man  goes  out  into  his  life  of 
duty-doing.  He  tries  to  do  right,  and  he 
makes  mistakes ;  he  does  his  best,  and  he 
fails.  But  then  his  life  goes  on  and  other 
duties  meet  it,  and  out  of  his  old  mistakes 
comes  new  success,  and  out  of  the  discipline 
of  his  conscience  brought  about  by  his  fail- 
ures comes  the  power  of  his  conscience,  and 
by  degrees  —  he  hardly  knows  how  —  his 
will  grows  strong.  So  perhaps  it  happens 
that  a  man  some  morning  kneels  down  and 
says  his  prayer,  and  then  rises  and  goes  out 
into  the  world,  the  same  man  with  the  same 
cares  and  fears  on  his  shoulder,  as  though 
36 


ittornintrc  in  tlje  Colkffe  Cbapcl 

there  had  been  no  blessing  from  his  prayer. 
He  passes  out  into  the  day's  life  all  un- 
changed. But  then,  as  it  sometimes  happens 
through  God's  grace,  as  he  goes,  life  seems 
soberer  and  plainer,  and,  by  the  very  prayer 
he  thought  unanswered,  he  is  healed.  Not 
in  the  great  hour  of  his  petition,  but  as  he 
trudges  along  the  dusty  road  of  life  the 
cleansing  comes  to  him,  and  the  burden 
which  he  prayed  might  be  taken  from  him, 
and  which  seemed  to  be  left  to  bear,  drops 
unnoticed  by  the  way. 
37 


in  tbe  College 

XIV 

LEARNING   AND  LIFE 
Romans  xii.  i. 


letters  of  Paul,  varied  as  they  are 
in  their  purpose,  have  one  curious 
likeness.  Each  goes  its  way  through 
a  tangled  argument  of  doctrinal  discussion, 
and  then  in  almost  every  case  each  issues,  as 
it  were,  into  more  open  ground,  with  a  series 
of  practical  maxims  for  the  conduct  of  life.  If 
you  are  looking  for  profound  Biblical  philoso- 
phy, you  turn  to  the  first  part  of  Paul's  epis- 
tles. If  you  are  looking  for  rules  of  moral 
conduct,  you  turn  to  the  last  part.  And  be- 
tween these  two  sections  there  is,  as  a  rule, 
one  connecting  word.  It  is  the  word  "  there- 
fore." The  maxims,  that  is  to  say,  are  the 
consequences  of  the  philosophy.  The  the- 
ology of  Paul  is  to  him  an  immediate  cause 
of  the  better  conduct  of  life.  "  I,  therefore, 
the  prisoner  of  the  Lord,"  —  he  says  to  the 
Ephesians.  "  If,  therefore,  there  is  any  com- 
fort in  Christ,"  he  says  to  the  Philippians. 
38 


fflornincjs  in  t&c  College  Cljapcl 

"I  beseech  you,  therefore,  by  the  mercy  of 
God,"  he  says  to  the  Romans. 

We  hear  much  in  these  days  of  the  practical 
perils  of  the  intellectual  life ;  the  spiritual 
risks  of  education,  the  infidelity  of  scholars, 
as  though  one  who  dealt  much  in  the  specula- 
tions of  philosophy  would  lose  the  impulse 
to  the  devout  and  generous  life ;  and  cer- 
tainly there  are  scholars  enough  whose  learn- 
ing has  shrivelled  up  their  souls.  But  the 
attitude  of  Paul  toward  the  general  question 
of  the  relation  of  learning  to  life  is  this,  — 
that  the  better  philosopher  a  man  is,  so  much 
the  better  Christian  he  is  likely  to  be ;  that 
hard  thinking  opens  naturally  into  strong 
doing;  that  while  not  all  religion  is  for 
scholars,  there  is  a  scholar's  religion,  and 
while  not  all  sin  comes  from  ignorance,  much 
foolish  conduct  comes  of  superficial  philoso- 
phy. Let  us  take  courage  to-day  in  this 
natural  association  of  philosophy  and  life. 
The  world  needs  piety,  but  it  needs  in  our 
time  a  new  accession  of  rational  piety,  or  what 
the  apostle  calls  "reasonable  service."  The 
world  needs  enthusiasm,  but  it  still  more 
urgently  needs  intelligently  directed  enthusi- 
asm. Remember  that  the  same  man  who  laid 
39 


in  tljc  College  Cfcnprl 

the  foundation  for  the  whole  history  of  Chris- 
tian theology  and  philosophy  was  at  the  same 
time  the  most  practical  of  counsellors  con- 
cerning Christian  duty  and  love.  He  explores 
with  a  free  mind  the  speculative  mysteries  of 
religious  philosophy,  and  then,  perceiving  the 
bearing  of  these  researches  on  the  conduct  of 
life  he  proceeds  as  from  a  cause  to  an  effect, 
and  writes:  "Therefore,  my  brethren,  I  be- 
seech you,  present  yourselves  a  living  sacri- 
fice." 

40 


in  tbc  Colfcjc 

XV 

FILLING  LIFE  FULL 
Matthew  v.  17. 

>HE  Jews  thought  that  Jesus  had  come 
to  destroy  their  teaching  and  to 
abandon  all  their  splendid  history, 
though  Jesus  repeatedly  told  them  that  his 
purpose  was  not  destructive ;  that  he  wanted 
to  take  all  that  great  past  and  fill  it  full  of  the 
meaning  it  was  meant  to  bear ;  to  fulfill,  as 
this  famous  verse  says,  their  law  and  prophets. 
A  great  many  people  still  think  that  Jesus 
comes  to  destroy.  The  religious  life  appears 
to  them  a  life  of  giving  up  things.  Renun- 
ciation seems  the  Christian  motto.  The  re- 
ligious person  forsakes  his  passions,  denies 
his  tastes,  mortifies  his  body,  and  then  is  holy. 
But  Jesus  always  answers  that  he  comes  not 
to  destroy,  but  to  fill  full ;  not  to  preach  the 
renunciation  of  capacity,  but  the  consecration 
of  capacity. 

Here  is  your  body,  with  all  its  vigorous  life. 
It  is  a  part  of  your  religion  to  fill  out  your 
body.     It  is  the  temple  of  God,  to  be  kept 
4' 


in  t\)t  College 

clean  for  his  indwelling.  Not  the  ascetic 
man,  but  the  athletic  man  is  the  physical 
representative  of  the  Christian  life.  Here  is 
your  mind,  with  all  the  intellectual  pursuits 
which  engross  you  here.  Many  people  sup- 
pose that  the  scholar's  life  is  in  antagonism 
to  the  interests  of  religion,  as  though  a  uni- 
versity were  somehow  a  bad  place  for  a  man's 
soul.  But  religion  comes  not  to  destroy  the 
intellectual  life.  It  wants  not  an  empty  mind 
but  a  full  one.  The  perils  of  this  age  come 
not  from  scholars,  but  from  smatterers  ;  not 
from  those  who  know  much,  but  from  those 
who  think  they  "  know  it  all."  When  our  fore- 
fathers desired  to  do  something  for  the  service 
of  their  God,  one  of  the  first  things  they  re- 
garded as  their  religious  duty  was,  as  you 
may  read  yonder  on  our  gate,  to  found  this 
college.  And  here,  once  more,  are  your  pas- 
sions, tempting  you  to  sin.  Are  you  to 
destroy  them,  fleeing  from  them  like  the  her- 
mits from  the  world  ?  Oh,  no  !  You  are  not 
to  destroy  them,  but  to  direct  them  to  a  pas- 
sionate interest  in  better  things.  The  soul  is 
not  saved  by  having  the  force  taken  out  of  it. 
It  is,  as  Chalmers  said,  the  expulsive  force  of 
a  new  affection  which  redeems  one  from  his 
42 


in  tbe  Colltge  Cljapcl 

old  sin.  How  small  a  thing  we  make  of  the 
religious  life  ;  hiding  it  in  a  comer  of  human 
nature,  serving  it  in  a  fragment  of  the  week ; 
and  here  stands  Jesus  Christ  at  the  centre 
of  all  our  activities  of  body  and  mind  and  will, 
and  calls  for  the  consecration  of  the  whole  of 
life,  for  the  all-round  man,  for  the  fulfilment 
of  capacity.  In  him,  says  the  scripture,  is 
not  emptiness,  but  fullness  of  life. 
43 


in  t&e  College 

XVI 

TAKING  ONE'S  SHARE  OF  HARDSHIPS 
2  Timothy  ii.  3. 


is  one  of  the  passages  where  the 
Revised  Version  brings  out  more 
clearly  the  meaning.1  The  Old  Ver- 
sion says:  "Endure  hardness;"  as  though 
it  were  an  appeal  to  an  individual.  The  Re- 
vised Version  in  the  margin  says  :  "  Take  thy 
part  in  suffering  hardship  ;  "  take,  that  is  to 
say,  your  share  of  the  hardship  which  belongs 
to  the  common  cause.  "  Come  in  with  the 
rest  of  us,"  it  means,  "in  bearing  the  hard 
times."  There  were  plenty  of  hard  times  in 
those  days.  Paul  was  a  prisoner  in  Rome  ; 
Nero's  persecution  was  abroad.  When  the 
aged  Paul,  however,  writes  to  the  young  man 
whom  he  affectionately  calls  his  beloved  child, 
he  does  not  say  to  him  :  "  I  hope,  my  beloved 
child,  that  you  will  find  life  easier  than  I  have, 
or  that  the  times  will  clear  up  before  you  have 
to  take  the  lead."  He  says,  on  the  contrary  : 

i  This  change  of  reading  is  finely  commented  on  by  F.  Paget, 
The  Hallowing  of  Work,  p.  57.    Longmans,  1891. 

44 


jHorningct  in  tfce  Colic jc 

"  The  times  are  very  hard.  Come  in  with  us 
then  and  take  your  share  of  the  hardship." 

A  great  many  people  in  the  modern  world 
are  trying  to  look  at  life  in  quite  an  opposite 
way.  They  want  to  make  it  soft  and  easy 
for  themselves  and  for  their  sons.  The  prob- 
lem of  life  is  to  get  rid  of  hardness.  Educa- 
tion is  to  be  smoothed  and  simplified.  Trouble 
and  care  are  to  be  kept  away  from  their 
beloved  children.  Young  people  are  to  have 
a  good  time  while  they  can.  The  apostle 
strikes  a  wholly  different  note.  Writing  to 
a  young  man  of  the  modern  time  he  would 
say  :  "  There  is  a  deal  of  hardship,  of  poverty, 
of  industrial  distress  in  the  world,  and  I 
charge  you  to  take  your  share  in  it !  Are 
you  not  old  enough  to  enlist  in  Christ's  army  ? 
At  your  age,  college  men  twenty-five  years 
ago  were  brigadier-generals,  dying  at  the  head 
of  their  troops.  Take  your  place,  then,  in  the 
modern  battle.  Be  a  good  soldier,  not  a  shirk 
or  a  runaway." 

When  that  extraordinary  man,  —  perhaps 
the  most  inspiring  leader  of  men  in  our  gener- 
ation, —  General  Armstrong,  was  first  under- 
taking his  work  for  the  negroes  in  Virginia, 
he  wrote  a  letter  to  a  friend  in  the  North, 
45 


in  t(jc  College 

saying :  "  Dear  Miss  Ludlow  :  If  you  care 
to  sail  into  a  good  hearty  battle,  where  there 
is  no  scratching  and  pin-sticking,  but  great 
guns  and  heavy  shot  only  used,  come  here. 
If  you  like  to  lend  a  hand  when  a  good  cause 
is  short-handed,  come  here."  Could  any 
brave  man  or  woman  resist  a  call  like  that  ? 
It  was  a  call  to  arms,  a  summons  to  a  good 
soldier  of  Jesus  Christ.  The  problem  of  a 
soldier  is,  not  to  find  a  soft  and  easy  place  in 
life,  with  plenty  to  get  and  little  to  do,  but  "to 
take  his  share  of  hardship,"  and  as  the  passage 
goes  on,  "  to  please  him  who  hath  chosen  him 

to  be  a  soldier." 

46 


in  tfce  Collccif 

XVII 

CHRISTIAN  UNITY 
Ephcsians  iv.  13. 

hear  much  in  these  days  of  Chris- 
tian unity,  and  many  programmes  and 
platforms  and  propositions  are  pre- 
sented to  us,  as  though  religious  unity  were 
a  thing  to  be  constructed  and  put  together 
like  a  building,  which  should  be  big  enough 
to  hold  us  all.  But  in  this  splendid  chapter 
religious  unity  is  regarded  by  the  apostle,  not 
as  a  thing  which  is  to  be  made,  but  as  a  thing 
which  is  to  grow.  "There  is,"  he  says  "one 
body  and  one  spirit ;  there  is  a  unity  of  the 
faith.  But  we  do  not  make  this  unity ;  we  grow 
up  into  it  as  we  "  attain  unto  a  full-grown 
man ;  we  attain  unto  it  as  a  boy  becomes  a 
man,  not  by  discussing  his  growth,  or  by  wor- 
rying because  he  is  not  a  man,  or  by  bragging 
that  he  is  bigger  than  other  boys,  but  simply 
by  growing  up.  Thus,  as  people  grow  up 
into  Christ,  they  grow  up  into  unity.  The 
unity  comes  not  of  the  assent  of  man  to  cer- 
tain propositions,  but  of  the  ascent  of  man  to 
47 


;porninpi  in  tfje  Collcp  Cftapcl 

the  stature  of  Christ.  And  so  what  hinders 
unity  is  that  we  have  not  got  our  spiritual 
growth.  It  takes  a  full-grown  mind  to  reach 
it.  It  takes  a  full-grown  heart  to  feel  it. 
The  unity  is  always  waiting  at  the  top.  Re- 
ligious progress  is  like  the  ascent  of  a  hill 
from  various  sides.  Below  there  is  division, 
obstructive  underbrush,  perplexity ;  but  as  the 
top  is  neared  there  is  ever  a  closer  approach 
of  man  to  man ;  and  at  the  summit  there  is 
the  same  view  for  all,  and  that  view  is  a  view 
all  round.  The  climbers  attain  to  the  meas- 
ure of  the  stature  of  Christ,  and  they  attain 
at  the  same  time  to  the  unity  of  the  faith. 
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in  tljc  College  Cfcapel 

XVIII 
THE  PATIENCE  OF  FAITH 

Mark  iv.  28. 

JESUS  here  falls  back,  as  he  so  often 
does,  on  the  gradualness  of  nature. 
Life,  he  says,  is  not  abrupt  and  revo- 
lutionary in  its  method ;  it  is  gradual  and 
evolutionary :  the  seed  is  sown  and  slowly 
comes  to  fruitage ;  the  leaven  silently  pene- 
trates the  lump ;  the  grain  grows,  first  the 
blade,  then  the  ear,  finally  the  full  corn.  The 
best  things  in  the  world  do  not  come  with  a 
rush.  Some  things  have  to  be  waited  for. 
Faith  is  patient.  And  this  he  says,  not  only 
against  the  nervous  hurry  of  life,  which  is,  as 
we  all  know,  cursing  the  American  world  to- 
day, but  also  against  the  spiritual  impatience 
which  is  to  be  observed  in  every  age.  The 
most  marked  illustration  of  it  to-day  is  in  our 
dealings  with  the  social  movements  of  the 
time.  It  is  the  impatience  of  the  reformer. 
He  wants  to  redeem  the  world  all  at  once. 
As  Theodore  Parker  said  of  the  anti-slavery 
cause :  "  The  trouble  seems  to  be  that  God 
49 


in  t&e  Gollr g;c  Cljapel 

is  not  in  a  hurry,  and  I  am."  Thus  we  are  be- 
set by  panaceas  which  are  to  regenerate  so- 
ciety in  some  wholesale,  external,  mechanical 
way.  When  such  a  reformer  not  long  ago 
presented  some  quick  solution  of  the  social 
question,  and  it  was  criticised,  he  answered  : 
"  Well,  if  you  do  not  accept  my  solution, 
what  is  yours  ? "  as  though  every  one  must 
have  some  immediate  cure  for  the  evils  of 
civilization.  But  the  fact  is,  that  the  world 
is  not  likely  to  be  saved  in  any  wholesale  way. 
A  much  wiser  observer  of  the  social  situa- 
tion has  lately  said  :  "  When  any  one  brings 
forward  a  complete  solution  of  the  Social 
Question,  I  move  to  adjourn."  Jesus,  let  us 
remember,  saved  men  one  at  a  time.  The 
patience  of  nature  taught  him  the  patience 
of  faith ;  first  the  blade,  then  the  ear,  then 
the  full  corn. 

Or,  again,  we  are  afflicted  in  our  day  by  the 
impatience  of  the  theologian.  He  wants  to 
know  all  about  God.  It  seems  somehow  a 
depreciation  of  theology  to  admit  that  there  is 
anything  which  is  not  revealed.  But  the  fact 
is  that  the  wisest  feel  most  the  sense  of  mys- 
tery. The  only  theology  which  is  likely  to 
last  is  one  which  admits  a  large  degree  of 
So 


in  tfce  College 

Christian  agnosticism.  As  one  of  our  Univer- 
sity preachers  once  said :  "  We  do  not  know 
anything  about  God  unless  we  first  know  that 
we  cannot  know  Him  perfectly."  l  How  su- 
perb, as  against  all  this  impatience  of  spirit, 
are  the  reserve  and  patience  of  Christ.  Accept 
doubts,  he  says.  Bear  with  incompleteness. 
Give  faith  its  chance  to  grow.  First  the 
blade,  then  the  ear,  and  then  the  harvest. 
There  are  some  things  which  youth  can 
prove,  and  some  which  only  the  experience 
of  maturity  can  teach,  and  then  there  are 
some  mysteries  which  are  perhaps  to  be 
made  plain  to  us  only  in  the  clearer  light  of 
another  world. 

1  Henry  ran  Dyke,  D.  D.,  Straight  Sermons,  p.  216,  Scribners, 
I893- 


in  tjje  College 

XIX 

THE  BOND-SERVANT  AND  THE  SON 
Luke  xvii.  7-10. 

are  unprofitable  servants,  we  have 
done  that  which  it  was  our  duty  to 
do."  It  seems  almost  as  if  we  must 
have  misread  this  passage.  Can  one  who  has 
done  his  duty  be  called  an  unprofitable  ser- 
vant ?  Shall  one  have  no  credit  because  he 
has  done  what  is  right  ?  This  seems  strange 
indeed.  But  Jesus  in  reality  is  contrasting 
two  ideas  of  duty,  —  the  duty  of  a  bond-ser- 
vant and  the  duty  of  a  son.  The  duty  of  a 
slave  is  to  do  what  is  demanded  of  him.  He 
accomplishes  his  stint  of  work,  his  round  of 
necessities,  his  grudging  service,  and  for  do- 
ing that  duty  he  gets  his  hire  and  his  day's 
work  is  done.  Sometimes  we  see  workmen 
for  the  city  in  the  roadway,  doing  their  duty 
on  these  terms,  and  we  wonder  that  men 
can  move  so  slowly  and  accomplish  so  little. 
They  have  done  their  duty,  but  they  are  un- 
profitable servants.  Now  against  this,  Jesus 
sets  the  Christian  thought  of  duty,  which 
52 


in  tbc  College  Chapel 

grows  out  of  the  Christian  thought  of  sonship. 
A  son  who  loves  his  father  does  not  measure 
his  duty  by  what  is  demanded  of  him.  No 
credit  is  his  for  obeying  orders.  He  passes 
from  obligation  to  affection,  from  demand  to 
privilege.  And  only  as  he  passes  thus  into 
uncalled-for  and  spontaneous  service  does  any 
credit  come.  There  is  no  credit  in  a  man's 
paying  his  debts,  earning  his  hire,  meeting 
his  demands.  The  business  man  does  not 
thank  his  clerk  for  doing  what  he  is  paid  for. 
What  the  employer  likes  to  see  is  that  ser- 
vice beyond  obligation  which  means  fidelity 
and  loyalty.  Do  you  do  your  work  for  wages, 
for  marks,  from  compulsion  ?  Then,  when  you 
lie  down  at  night,  you  should  say :  "  I  have 
done  that  which  it  was  my  duty  to  do,  and  I 
am  ashamed."  Do  you  do  your  work  for 
love's  sake,  for  the  life  of  service  to  which  it 
leads,  for  generous  ambition  and  hope  ?  Then 
with  all  your  sense  of  ineffectiveness  and  in- 
capacity you  may  still  have  that  inward  peace 
and  joy  which  permits  you  to  say :  "  I  have 
done  but  little  of  what  I  dreamed  of  doing, 
but  I  have  tried,  at  any  rate,  to  do  it  unself- 
ishly and  gladly,  —  not  as  a  bond-servant,  but 
as  a  son." 

53 


ifiorninp  in  tfje  CaUc&e  C&apcl 

• 
XX 

DYING  TO   LIVE 

2  Corinthians  iv.  12. 

PAUL  repeatedly  described  his 
spiritual  experiences  under  physical 
figures  of  speech  ;  and  most  of  all  he 
writes  of  himself  as  living  over  in  his  spiritual 
life  the  incidents  of  the  physical  life  and 
death  of  Jesus.  He  is  crucified  with  Christ ; 
he  is  risen  with  Christ ;  he  bears  about  in 
his  body  the  dying  of  Christ.  "  Death  work- 
eth  in  us,  but  life  in  you."  This  sounds  like 
exaggerated  and  rhetorical  language.  It 
seems  a  strange  use  of  words  to  say  that  the 
death  of  self  is  the  life  of  the  world.  But 
consider  how  it  was  with  this  man  Paul.  He 
had  been  ambitious,  sanguine,  impetuous,  and 
it  had  all  come  to  nothing,  and  worse  than 
nothing.  He  had  been  led  to  persecute  the 
very  faith  which  he  had  soon  found  to  be 
God's  truth.  And  then  he  gives  up  every- 
thing. He  throws  away  every  prospect  of 
honor  and  public  respect  and  social  ambition. 
He  simply  dies  to  himself,  and  gives  himself 
54 


Iftonunje  in  t&e  Collect 

to  the  service  of  Christ ;  and,  behold,  that 
death  of  self  is  the  beginning  of  life  and  cour- 
age to  generation  after  generation  of  Christian 
followers. 

The  same  story  might  be  told  of  many  a 
man.  Just  in  proportion  as  self-seeking  dies, 
life  begins.  A  man  goes  his  way  in  self- 
assertion,  self-display,  the  desire  to  make  an 
impression,  and  he  seems  to  achieve  much. 
He  gets  distinction,  glory,  the  prizes  of  life. 
But  one  thing  he  fails  to  do ;  he  fails  to 
quicken  spiritual  life  in  others.  His  work  is 
stained  by  self-consciousness,  and  becomes 
incapable  of  inspiration.  It  is  life  to  him, 
but  death  to  the  things  that  are  trusted  to 
him.  Then  some  day  he  absolutely  forgets 
himself  in  his  work.  He  buries  himself,  as 
we  say,  in  it.  His  conceit  and  ambition  die, 
and  then  out  of  the  death  of  self  comes  the 
life  of  the  world  he  serves.  That  is  the  para- 
dox of  life.  Life  is  reproduced  by  sacrifice. 
The  life  that  is  lost  is  the  only  life  that  is 
saved.  The  dead  self  is  the  only  life-bearer. 
Only  the  man  who  thus  sinks  himself  in  his 
cause  is  remembered  as  its  apostle. 
55 


jftormngg  in  t&e  College  Chapel 

XXI 
CARRYING   YOUR  OWN  CROSS 

Mark  viii.  34. 

any  man  will  come  after  me,"  says 
Jesus,  "let  him  take  up  his  cross 
and  follow."  Notice  that  it  is  his 
own  cross.  This  is  a  different  picture  of 
Christian  discipleship  from  that  which  is  com- 
monly presented.  We  are  used  to  thinking 
of  people  as  abandoning  their  own  lives,  their 
passions  and  desires,  their  own  weakness  and 
their  own  strength,  and  turning  to  the  one 
support  and  safety  of  the  cross  of  Jesus 
Christ.  We  remember  that  familiar  picture 
of  the  woman  who  has  been  almost  over- 
whelmed in  the  sea  of  trouble,  and  is  finally 
cast  up  by  the  waves  of  life  upon  the  rock 
where  she  clings  to  the  cross  which  is  set 
there  as  a  refuge  for  her  shipwrecked  soul. 
Now,  no  doubt,  that  refuge  in  the  cross  of 
Christ  has  been  to  many  a  real  experience. 
"  Other  refuge  have  I  none,  hangs  my  help- 
less soul  on  thee,"  has  been,  no  doubt,  often 
a  sincere  confession.  But  that  is  not  the 
56 


;fKarning0  in  tfce  ColL-cre 

state  of  mind  which  Jesus  is  describing  in  this 
passage.  He  is  thinking,  not  of  some  limp 
and  helpless  soul  clinging  to  something  out- 
side itself,  but  rather  of  a  masculine,  vigorous, 
rational  life,  which  shoulders  its  own  respon- 
sibility and  trudges  along  under  it.  Jesus 
says  that  if  a  man  wants  to  follow  him,  he 
must  first  of  all  take  up  his  own  burden  like 
a  man.  He  sees,  for  instance,  a  young  man 
to-day  beset  by  his  own  problems  and  diffi- 
culties,—  his  poverty,  his  temper,  his  sin,  his 
timidity,  his  enemies  ;  and  Jesus  says  to  him  : 
"That  is  your  cross,  your  own  cross.  Now, 
do  not  shirk  it,  or  dodge  it,  or  lie  down  on  it, 
or  turn  from  it  to  my  cross.  First  of  all,  take 
up  your  own ;  let  it  lie  on  your  shoulder ; 
and  then  stand  up  under  it  like  a  man  and 
come  to  me  ;  and  as  you  thus  come,  not 
limply  and  feebly,  but  with  the  step  —  even 
let  it  be  the  staggering  step  —  of  a  man  who 
is  honestly  bearing  his  own  load,  you  will  find 
that  your  way  opens  into  strength  and  peace. 
The  yoke  you  have  to  carry  will  grow  easier 
for  you  to  carry,  and  the  burden  which  you  do 
not  desire  to  shirk  will  be  made  light." 
57 


in  tfjt  College 

XXII 

THE  POOR  IN  SPIRIT 
Matthew  v.  3. 


does  Jesus  call  the  blessed 
people  ?  First  of  all,  he  says,  they 
are  the  "  poor  in  spirit."  And  who 
are  the  poor  in  spirit  ?  It  sometimes  seems 
as  if  Christians  thought  that  to  be  poor  in 
spirit  one  must  be  poor-spirited  —  a  limp  and 
spiritless  creature,  without  dash,  or  vigor,  or 
force.  But  the  poor  in'spirit  are  not  the  poor- 
spirited.  They  are  simply  the  teachable,  the 
receptive,  the  people  who  want  help  and  are 
conscious  of  need.  They  do  not  think  they 
"  know  it  all  ;  "  they  appreciate  their  own 
insufficiency.  They  are  open-minded  and  im- 
pressionable. Now  Jesus  says  that  the  first 
approach  to  his  blessedness  is  in  this  teach- 
able spirit.  The  hardest  people  for  him  to 
reach  were  always  the  self-sufficient  people. 
The  Pharisees  thought  they  did  not  need  any- 
thing, and  so  they  could  not  get  anything. 
As  any  one  thinks,  then,  of  his  own  greatest 
blessings,  the  first  of  them  must  be  this,  — 
58 


fHomtng;0  in  tljc  College  Cbapcl 

that  somehow  he  has  been  made  open-minded 
to  the  good  It  may  be  that  the  conceit  has 
been,  as  we  say,  knocked  out  of  him,  and  that 
he  has  been  "  taken  down."  Well !  it  is  bet- 
ter to  be  taken  down  than  to  be  still  up  or 
"  uppish."  It  is  better  to  have  the  self-compla- 
cency knocked  out  of  you  than  to  have  it  left 
in.  Humility,  as  Henry  Drummond  once 
said,  even  when  it  happens  through  humilia- 
tion, is  a  blessing.  Not  to  the  Pharisee  with 
his  "  I  am  not  as  other  men  are,"  but  to  the 
publican  crying  "God  be  merciful  to  me, 
a  sinner,"  comes  the  promise  of  the  beatitude. 
The  first  condition  of  receiving  the  gift  of 
God  is  to  be  free  from  the  curse  of  conceit. 
The  spiritually  poor  are  the  first  to  receive 
Christ's  blessing.  They  have  at  least  made 
themselves  accessible  to  the  further  blessings 
which  Jesus  has  to  bestow. 
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in  t&c  College  C&apel 

XXIII 

THE  MOURNERS 
Matthew  v.  4. 


does  Jesus  call  the  blessed  peo- 
ple ?  How  strange  it  sounds  when 
he  answers  :  "  Blessed  are  they  that 
mourn:  for  they  shall  be  comforted." 
Blessed,  that  is  to  say,  are  not  only  the 
people  who,  as  we  say,  are  in  sorrow  ;  but 
blessed  are  all  the  burdened  people,  the  peo- 
ple who  are  having  a  hard  time,  the  people 
who  are  bearing  their  crosses,  for  they  are 
the  ones  who  will  learn  the  deeper  comfort  of 
the  Gospel.  It  is  the  same  promise  which  is 
repeated  later  in  another  place  :  "  Come  unto 
me  all  ye  that  are  heavy  laden,  and  I  will  give 
you  rest."  This  does  not  mean  that  mourn- 
ing is  blessed  for  its  own  sake,  or  that  the 
only  way  to  be  a  Christian  is  to  be  sad.  It 
simply  calls  attention  to  this  fact,  that  every 
life  is  sure  to  have  some  hardness,  or  burden, 
or  cross  in  it.  If  you  have  none,  it  simply 
shows  that  you  have  not  really  begun  to  live. 
And  Jesus  says  that  the  farther  you  go  into 
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in  tljc  Callfje  €  I)  ape  I 

these  deep  places  of  experience,  the  more 
you  will  get  out  of  his  religion.  There  are 
some  phases  of  life  where  it  makes  little  dif- 
ference whether  you  have  any  religion  or  not. 
But  let  the  water  of  trouble  go  over  your 
soul,  and  then  there  is  just  one  support  which 
keeps  you  from  going  down.  Religion,  that 
is  to  say,  is  not  a  thing  for  holidays  and  easy 
times.  Its  comfort  is  not  discovered  until 
you  come  to  a  hard  place.  The  more  it  is 
needed,  the  stronger  it  is.  How  strange  it  is 
that  the  people  who  seem  most  conscious  of 
their  blessings  and  sustained  by  a  sense  of 
gratitude  are,  as  a  rule,  people  who  have  been 
called  to  mourn.  It  is  not  resignation  only 
which  they  have  found ;  it  is  light.  They 
have  been  comforted  through  their  sorrows. 
Their  burden  has  been  made  easy  and  their 
yoke  light. 

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in  tbc  College  Chapel 

XXIV 

THE  MEEK 
Matthew  v.  5. 

JHOM  does  Jesus  call  the  blessed  peo- 
ple ?  Again  he  answers :  "  Blessed 
are  the  meek :  for  they  shall  inherit 
the  earth."  And  who  are  the  meek?  We 
think  of  a  meek  man  as  a  limp  and  mild 
creature  who  has  no  capacity  to  hurt  or  cour- 
age to  help.  But  that  is  not  what  the  Bible 
word  means.  Meekness  is  not  weakness. 
The  Book  of  Numbers  says  that  Moses  was 
the  meekest  man  that  ever  lived  ;  but  one  of 
the  first  illustrations  of  his  character  was  in 
slaying  an  Egyptian  who  insulted  his  people. 
The  meek  man  of  the  Bible  is  simply  what 
we  call  the  gentle-man  —  the  man  without 
swagger  or  arrogance,  not  self-assertive  or 
forthputting,  but  honorable  and  considerate. 
This  is  the  sense  in  which  it  has  been  said  of 
Jesus  that  he  was  the  first  of  gentlemen. 
Now  these  people,  the  gracious  and  generous, 
—  not  the  self-important  and  ostentatious,  — 
are,  according  to  Jesus,  in  the  end  to  rule. 
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in  tljc  College 

They  are  not  to  get  what  we  call  the  prizes 
of  life,  the  social  notoriety  and  position,  but 
they  are  to  have  the  leadership  of  their  time 
and  its  remembrance  when  they  are  gone. 
Long  after  showy  ambition  has  its  little  day 
and  ceases  to  be,  the  world  will  remember 
the  magnanimous  and  self-effacing  leader. 
He  does  not  have  to  grasp  the  prizes  of  earth  ; 
he,  as  Jesus  says,  "inherits  the  earth."  It  is 
his  by  right.  The  meek,  says  the  thirty- 
seventh  Psalm,  shall  inherit  the  earth  and 
shall  delight  themselves  in  abundance  of 
peace.  The  meek  escape  the  quarrelsomeness 
of  ambition.  They  live  in  a  world  of  peace 
and  good-will.  And  when  we  sing  of  peace 
on  earth  and  good-will  to  men,  we  are  only 
repeating  the  beatitude  of  Jesus :  "  Blessed 
are  the  meek,  for  they  shall  inherit  the 
earth." 

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in  tfjc  College 

XXV 

THE  HUNGER  FOR  RIGHTEOUSNESS 
Matthew  v.  6. 

)HOM  does  Jesus  call  the  blessed  peo- 
ple ?  "Blessed,"  he  goes  on,  "are 
they  that  hunger  and  thirst  after 
righteousness  :  for  they  shall  be  rilled."  The 
New  Testament  repeatedly  states  this  doc- 
trine, which  sounds  so  strangely  in  our  ears. 
It  is  the  doctrine  that  a  man  gets  what  he 
asks  for  —  that  his  real  hunger  will  be  filled. 
We  should  say  that  just  the  opposite  of  this 
was  true  —  that  life  was  a  continued  striving 
to  get  things  which  one  fails  to  get  —  a  hun- 
ger which  is  doomed  to  stay  unsatisfied.  But 
Jesus  turns  to  his  followers  and  says :  "  Ask, 
and  you  shall  receive;  seek,  and  you  shall 
find,"  and  in  the  same  spirit  turns  even  to 
the  hypocrites  and  says  again :  "  They  also 
receive  their  reward."  Conduct,  that  is  to 
say,  fulfils  its  destiny.  What  you  sow,  you 
reap.  The  blessing  which  is  sufficiently  de- 
sired is  attained.  What  you  really  ask  for, 
you  get.  The  only  reason  why  this  does  not 
64 


in  the  College  Chapel. 

seem  to  be  true  is  that  we  do  not  realize 
what  the  things  are  which  we  are  asking  for 
and  what  must  be  the  inevitable  answer  to 
our  demand.  We  ask,  for  instance,  for 
money ;  and  we  expect  an  answer  of  happi- 
ness. But  we  do  not  get  happiness,  we»only 
get  money,  which  is  a  wholly  different  thing. 
We  ask  for  popularity  and  reputation,  and 
we  expect  these  gifts,  when  received,  to  last ; 
but  we  have  asked  for  something  whose  very 
nature  is  that  it  does  not  last.  It  is  like  ask- 
ing for  a  soap-bubble  and  expecting  to  get 
a  billiard-ball.  We  cannot  work  for  the  tem- 
porary and  get  the  permanent.  If,  then,  it 
is  true  that  we  are  to  get  what  we  want,  then 
the  secret  of  happiness  is  to  want  the  best 
things  and  to  want  them  very  much.  If  we 
hunger  and  thirst  for  base  things  we  shall 
get  them.  Oh  yes,  we  shall  get  them  ;  and 
get  the  unhappiness  which  comes  of  this 
awful  discovery,  that  as  we  have  hungered  so 
we  are  filled.  And  if  we  are  really  hungry 
for  righteousness,  if  we  want  to  be  good,  as 
a  thirsty  man  wants  water,  if,  as  Jesus  says 
of  himself,  our  meat  is  to  do  the  will  of  Him 
who  sends  us,  then  that  demand  also  will  be 
supplied.  "  He  satisfieth  the  longing  soul," 
65 


;p0rmnjrg  in  t&e  College 

says  the  Psalmist,  "and  filleth  the  hungry 
soul "  —  not  with  success,  or  money,  or  fame, 
but  with  that  which  the  soul  was  hungry  for 
—  "with  goodness."  The  longing  soul  has 
sought  the  best  blessing,  and  it  has  received 
the  best  blessedness. 


66 


in  tbc  College  Cbapcl 

XXVI 

THE  MERCIFUL 
Matthew  v.  7. 

*HOM  does  Jesus  call  the  blessed  peo- 
ple ?  "Blessed  are  the  merciful :  for 
they  shall  obtain  mercy."  This  re- 
peats in  effect  the  later  words  of  Jesus: 
"  With  what  judgment  ye  judge,  ye  shall  be 
judged."  The  merciless  judgment  passed  on 
others  recoils  upon  one's  own  nature  and 
makes  it  hard  and  mean  and  brutalized.  The 
habit  of  charitable  judgment  of  others  is  a 
source  of  personal  blessedness.  It  blooms  out 
into  composure  and  hopefulness,  into  peace 
and  faith.  How  wonderful  these  great  calm 
affirmations  of  Jesus  are  !  They  are  directly 
in  the  face  of  the  most  common  views  of  life, 
and  yet  they  are  delivered  as  simple  axioms 
of  experience,  as  matters  of  fact,  self-evident 
propositions  of  the  reason.  It  is  not  a  matter 
of  barter  of  which  Jesus  is  speaking.  He 
does  not  say :  "  If  you  treat  another  kindly 
he  will  be  kind  to  you.  The  merciful  man 
will  get  mercy  when  he  needs  it."  That 
67 


in  tbc  College  Cbapcl 

would  not  be  the  truth.  The  best  of  men  are 
often  judged  most  mercilessly.  Jesus  him- 
self gives  his  life  to  acts  of  mercy,  and  is  pit- 
ilessly slain.  This  beatitude  gives,  not  a 
promise  to  pay,  but  a  law  of  life.  To  forgive 
an  injury  is,  according  to  this  law,  a  blessing 
to  the  forgiver  himself.  The  quality  of  mercy 
blesses  him  that  gives  as  well  as  him  that 
takes.  The  harsh  judge  of  others  grows  hard 
himself,  while  pity  softens  the  pitier.  Thus 
among  the  happiest  of  people  are  those  whose 
grudges  and  enmities  have  been  overcome  by 
their  own  broader  view  of  life.  It  is  as 
though  in  the  midst  of  winter  the  warmer 
sun  were  already  softening  the  frost.  They 
are  happy,  not  because  others  are  kinder  to 
them,  but  because  that  softer  soil  permits 
their  own  better  life  to  germinate  and  grow. 
The  merciful  has  obtained  mercy ;  the  blesser 
has  received  the  blessing. 
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in  tfct  Colkfft  Chapel 

XXVII 

THE  PURE  IN  HEART 
Matthew  v.  8. 

i  LESSED  are  the  pure  in  heart :  for 
they  shall  see  God."  That,  I  sup- 
pose, is  the  highest  and  deepest 
proposition  which  ever  fell  from  human  lips. 
Without  the  least  argument  or  reasoning 
about  it,  as  a  thing  which  is  perfectly  self- 
evident,  Jesus  announces  that  purity  of  heart 
leads  to  the  knowledge  of  God.  Your  charac- 
ter clarifies  your  creed.  A  theologian  who 
wants  to  be  profound  must  be  pure.  Conse- 
cration brings  with  it  insight.  The  perfect 
knowledge  of  God  is  to  be  attained  only  by 
the  perfectly  consecrated  life.  The  human 
soul  is  a  mirror  on  which  the  light  of  God 
shines,  and  only  the  pure  mirror  reflects  the 
perfect  image.  What  a  word  is  this  to  drop 
into  the  midst  of  the  conflicting  theologies  and 
philosophies  of  the  time,  of  the  disputes  be- 
tween the  people  who  think  they  know  all 
about  God,  and  the  people  who  think  they 
cannot  know  Him  at  all !  Do  you  want  to  be 

69 


in  t&e  Colfeffe 

sure  that  God  is  directing  and  supporting  you 
in  all  your  perplexing  experiences  of  life? 
You  cannot  see  God  in  these  things  except 
through  a  perfectly  purified  heart.  Clarify  the 
medium  of  vision,  and  truth  undiscerned  be- 
fore breaks  on  the  observer's  sight.  A  mile 
or  two  from  here  skilful  artisans  make  those 
great  object-glasses  with  which  the  mysteries 
of  the  stars  are  disclosed.  The  slightest 
speck  or  flaw  blurs  the  image,  but  with  the 
perfect  glass  stars  unseen  by  any  eye  through- 
out the  history  of  the  world  are  to  be  in  our 
days  discovered.  It  is  a  parable  of  the  soul. 
Each  film  on  the  object-glass  of  character 
obscures  the  heavenly  vision,  but  to  the  pre- 
pared and  translucent  life  truth  undiscernible 
by  others  breaks  upon  the  reverent  gaze,  and 
the  beatific  vision  is  revealed  to  the  pure  in 
heart. 


in  tbr  Colkje 

XXVIII 

THE  TWO  BAPTISMS 
in.  1  6. 


THE  WEEK  BEFORE  CHRISTMAS. 
[ONG  the  persons  who  group  them- 
selves about  Jesus,  the  most  dramatic 
and  picturesque  figure  is  certainly  that 
of  John  the  Baptist.  There  is  in  him  a  most 
extraordinary  combination  of  audacity  and 
humility.  He  is  bold,  denunciatory,  confi- 
dent ;  but  at  the  same  time  he  is  self-effacing 
and  preparatory  in  his  work.  He  never  thinks 
of  his  service  as  final  ;  after  him  is  to  come  a 
man  who  is  preferred  before  him.  There  is 
always  the  larger  work  than  his  to  follow. 
There  are  in  him  the  most  beautiful  humility 
and  the  most  absolute  bravery,  and  this  makes 
perhaps  the  rarest  combination  of  traits  which 
a  character  can  show.  It  is  all  summed  up  in 
his  doctrine  of  the  two  baptisms  :  the  baptism 
by  water,  which  John  is  to  bring,  and  the  bap- 
tism by  the  Holy  Ghost  and  by  fire,  which  is 
to  be  brought  by  Jesus.  Water  is,  of  course, 
the  symbol  of  cleansing,  the  washing  away  of 


in  tjjc  College 

one's  old  sins,  an  expulsive,  negative  work. 
Fire  is  the  symbol  of  passion,  enthusiasm, 
flame.  It  is  illuminating,  kindling,  the  work 
of  the  Holy  Ghost.  One  of  these  baptisms 
prepares  for  the  other.  First  a  man  must  be 
clean  and  then  he  may  be  passionate.  First, 
the  fire  of  his  base  affections  must  be  washed 
away  and  then  the  fire  of  a  new  enthusiasm 
may  be  lighted.  And  only  that  second  step 
makes  one  a  Christian.  It  is  a  great  thing  to 
have  life  cleansed,  and  its  conceits  and  follies 
washed  away.  But  that  is  not  safety.  The 
cleansing  is  for  the  moment  only.  It  is  like 
that  house  which  was  swept  and  garnished, 
but  because  it  was  empty  was  invaded  by 
tenants  worse  than  the  first.  The  only  salva- 
tion of  the  soul  lies  in  the  kindling  of  a  new 
passion,  the  lighting  of  the  fire  of  a  new  in- 
tention, the  expulsive  power,  as  it  has  been 
called,  of  a  new  affection. 

So  it  is  in  our  associated  life.  We  need, 
God  knows,  the  baptism  of  John,  the  purify- 
ing of  conduct,  the  washing  away  of  follies 
and  sins ;  but  what  we  need  much  more  is 
the  fire  of  a  moral  enthusiasm  to  burn  up  the 
refuse  that  lies  in  the  malarious  corners  of 
our  college  life,  and  light  up  the  whole  of  it 
72 


B  in  tfcc  College  Cjjapd 

with  moral  earnestness  and  passionate  desire 
for  good.  That  is  to  pass  from  the  disciple- 
ship  of  John  to  the  discipleship  of  Jesus, 
from  the  baptism  by  water  to  the  baptism  by 
fire,  from  the  spirit  of  the  Advent  season  to 
the  spirit  of  the  Christmas  time. 
73 


in  tljc  College  Cjjapri 

XXIX 

THE  WISE  MEN  AND  THE  SHEPHERDS 
Matthew  ii.  i-n  ;  Luke  ii.  8-10. 

>NE  Gospel  tells  of  one  kind  of  people 
who  saw  a  star  in  the  East  and  fol- 
lowed it;  and  another  Gospel  tells 
the  same  story  of  quite  an  opposite  kind  of 
people.  Matthew  says  that  the  wise  men  of 
the  time  were  the  first  to  appreciate  the  com- 
ing of  Christ.  Luke  says  that  it  was  the 
plainest  sort  of  people,  the  shepherds,  who 
first  greeted  that  coming.  There  is  the  same 
variety  of  impression  still.  Many  people  now 
write  as  if  religion  were  for  the  magi  only. 
They  make  of  it  a  mystery,  a  philosophy,  an 
opinion,  a  doctrine,  which  only  the  scholars  of 
the  time  can  appreciate,  and  which  plain 
people  can  obey,  but  cannot  understand. 
Many  people,  on  the  other  hand,  think  that 
religion  is  for  plain  people  only;  good  for 
shepherds,  but  outgrown  by  magi ;  a  star 
that  invites  the  superstitious  and  ignorant  to 
worship,  but  which  suggests  to  scholars  only 
a  new  phenomenon  for  science  to  explore. 
74 


fflorninjs  in  t&e  College  C&aprl 

But  the  Christmas  legend  calls  both,  the 
wise  and  the  humble,  to  discipleship.  Religion 
has  both  these  aspects,  and  offers  both  these 
invitations.  Religion  is  not  theology.  There 
are  many  things  which  are  hidden  from  the 
magi,  and  are  revealed  to  simple  shepherds. 
But  religion,  on  the  other  hand,  is  not  all  for 
the  simple.  The  man  who  wrote  that  there 
were  many  things  hidden  from  the  wise  and 
prudent,  was  himself  a  scholar.  It  was  like 
that  dramatic  day,  when  Wendell  Phillips 
arraigned  the  graduates  of  this  college  for 
indifference  to  moral  issues,  while  he  who 
made  the  indictment  was  a  graduate  himself. 
The  central  subject  of  the  highest  wisdom 
to-day  is,  as  it  always  has  been,  the  relation 
of  the  mind  of  man  to  the  universe  of  God. 

Thus  both  these  types  of  followers  are 
called.  Never  before  was  the  fundamental 
simplicity  of  religion  so  clear  as  it  is  now ;  and 
never  before  was  scholarship  in  religion  so 
needed.  Some  of  the  secrets  of  faith  are  open 
to  any  receptive  heart,  and  some  must  be 
explored  by  the  trained  and  disciplined  mind. 
The  scholar  and  the  peasant  are'both  called  to 
this  comprehensive  service.  The  magi  and 
the  shepherd  meet  at  the  cradle  of  the  Christ 
75 


fflorntnjs  in  tjjc  College 

XXX 

THE   SONG  OF  THE  ANGELS 
Luke  ii.  8-14. 

are  beginning  to  feel  already  the 
sweep  of  life  that  hurries  us  all  along  to 
the  keeping  of  the  Christmas  season ; 
our  music  already  takes  on  a  Christmas  tone, 
and  we  begin  to  hear  the  song  of  the  angels, 
which  seemed  to  the  Evangelists  to  give  the 
human  birth  of  Jesus  a  fit  accompaniment  in 
the  harmonies  of  heaven. 

This  song  of  the  angels,  as  we  have  been 
used  to  reading  it,  was  a  threefold  message ; 
of  glory  to  God,  peace  on  earth,  and  good- 
will among  men ;  but  the  better  scholarship 
of  the  Revised  Version  now  reads  in  the  verse 
a  twofold  message.  First,  there  is  glory  to 
God,  and  then  there  is  peace  on  earth  to  the 
men  of  good-will.  Those,  that  is  to  say,  who 
have  the  good-will  in  themselves  are  the  ones 
who  will  find  peace  on  earth.  Their  unself- 
ishness brings  them  their  personal  happiness. 
They  give  themselves  in  good-will,  and  so 
they  obtain  peace.  That  is  the  true  spirit 
76 


in  tfce  Collcsc  Chapel 

of  the  Christmas  season.  It  is  the  good-will 
which  brings  the  peace.  Over  and  over  again 
in  these  months  of  feverish  scrambling  for 
personal  gain,  men  have  sought  for  peace  and 
have  not  found  it ;  and  now,  when  they  turn 
to  this  generous  good-will,  the  peace  they 
sought  comes  of  itself.  Many  a  man  in  the 
past  year  has  had  his  misunderstandings  or 
grudges  or  quarrels  rob  him  of  his  own  peace ; 
but  now,  as  he  puts  away  these  differences  as 
unfit  for  the  season  of  good-will,  the  peace 
arrives.  That  is  the  paradox  of  Christianity. 
He  who  seeks  peace  does  not  find  it.  He 
who  gives  peace  finds  it  returning  to  him 
again.  He  who  hoards  his  life  loses  it,  and 
he  who  spends  it  finds  it :  — 

"  Not  what  we  give,  but  what  we  share, 
For  the  gift  without  the  giver  is  bare ; 
Who  gives  himself  with  his  alms  feeds  three, — 
Himself,  his  hungering  neighbor,  and  me." 

That  is  the  sweet  and  lingering  echo  of  the 
angels'  song. 

77 


jttorningfi  in  tfcc  College  Cljaprl 

XXXI 

THE   SECRET  OF  HEARTS  REVEALED 
Lukeii.  30-35. 


prophecy  of  the  aged  Simeon  for 
the  infant  Christ  was  this,  —  that 
through  him  the  secrets  of  many 
hearts  should  be  revealed.  Jesus,  that  is  to 
say,  was  not  only  to  read  the  secrets  of  others' 
hearts,  but  he  was  to  enable  people  to  read 
their  own  hearts.  They  were  to  come  into 
self-recognition  as  they  came  to  him.  They 
were  to  be  disclosed  to  themselves.  You 
know  how  that  happens  in  some  degree  when 
you  fall  in  with  other  exceptional  lives.  You 
meet  a  person  of  purity  or  self-control  or 
force,  and  there  waken  in  you  kindred  im- 
pulses, and  you  become  aware  of  your  own 
capacity  to  be  better  than  you  are.  The 
touch  of  the  heroic  discovers  to  you  some- 
thing of  heroism  in  yourself.  The  contagion 
of  nobleness  finds  a  susceptibility  for  that 
contagion  in  yourself. 

So  it  was  that  this  disclosure  of  their  hearts 
to  themselves  came  to  the  people  who  met  with 
78 


in  tfje  College  Chapel 

Jesus  Christ.  One  after  another  they  come 
up,  as  it  were,  before  him,  and  he  looks  on 
them  and  reads  them  like  an  open  book ;  and 
they  pass  on,  thinking  not  so  much  of  what 
Jesus  was,  as  of  the  revelation  of  their  own 
hearts  to  themselves.  Nathanael  comes,  and 
Jesus  reads  him,  and  he  answers  :  "  Whence 
knowest  thou  me  ?  "  Peter  comes,  and  Jesus 
beholds  him  and  says  :  "  Thou  shalt  be  called 
Cephas,  a  stone."  Nicodemus,  Pilate,  the 
woman  of  Samaria,  and  the  woman  who  was 
a  sinner,  pass  before  him,  and  the  secrets  of 
their  different  hearts  are  revealed  to  them- 
selves. It  is  so  now.  If  you  want  to  know 
yourself,  get  nearer  to  this  personality,  in 
whose  presence  that  which  hid  you  from  your- 
self falls  away,  and  you  know  yourself  as  you 
are.  The  most  immediate  effect  of  Christian 
discipleship  is  this,  — not  that  the  mysteries  of 
heaven  are  revealed,  but  that  you  yourself  are 
revealed  to  yourself.  Your  follies  and  weak- 
nesses, and  all  the  insignificant  efforts  of  your 
better  self  as  well,  come  into  recognition,  and 
you  stand  at  once  humbled  and  strengthened  in 
the  presence  of  a  soul  which  understands  you, 
and  believes  in  you,  and  stirs  you  to  do  and 
to  be  what  you  have  hitherto  only  dreamed. 
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in  tfjr  College  Cljapcl 

XXXII 

THE  GRACE  OF   JESUS   CHRIST 
HESE  are  the  last  words  of  most  of 


-i2  the  Epistles  of  the  New  Testament. 

^X.  They  are  the  last  words  of  the  New 
Testament  itself.  They  are  commonly  heard 
as  the  last  words  of  Christian  worship ;  the 
most  familiar  form  of  Christian  benediction. 
But  what  is  the  grace  of  Jesus  Christ  ? 
Grace  is  that  which  acts  not  for  duty's  sake, 
but  for  sheer  love  and  kindness.  What  is 
the  grace  of  God  ?  It  is  just  this  overflowing 
benevolence.  Who  is  the  gracious  man  ?  It 
is  he  who  gives  beyond  his  obligations,  and 
seeks  opportunities  of  thoughtful  kindliness. 
What  is  the  grace  of  Christ  ?  It  is  just  this 
superadded  and  unexpected  generosity. 

So  the  life  of  duty  and  the  life  of  grace  stand 
contrasted  with  each  other.  The  duty-doer 
thinks  of  justice,  honesty,  the  reputable  way 
of  life.  But  grace  goes  beyond  duty.  Duty 
asks,  What  ought  I  to  do  ?  Grace  asks,  What 
can  I  do  ?  Where  duty  halts,  grace  begins. 
It  touches  duty  with  beauty,  and  makes  it 
fair  instead  of  stern.  Grace  is  not  looking 
80 


^Rornintre  in  tljc  C-olltffc  Cbaprl 

for  great  things  to  do,  but  for  gracious  ways 
to  do  little  things.  In  many  spheres  of  life  it 
is  much  if  it  can  be  said  of  you  that  you  do 
your  duty.  But  think  of  a  home  of  which  all 
that  you  could  say  was  that  its  members  did 
their  duty.  That  would  be  as  much  as  to  say 
that  it  was  a  just  home,  but  a  severe  one ; 
decorous,  but  unloving ;  a  home  where  there 
was  fair  dealing,  but  where  there  was  little  of 
the  grace  of  Jesus  Christ. 

Thus  it  is  that  the  grace  of  Jesus  Christ 
sums  up  the  finest  beauty  of  the  Christian 
spirit,  and  offers  the  best  benediction  with 
which  Christians  should  desire  to  part.  As 
we  separate  for  a  time  from  our  worship,  I  do 
not  then  ask  that  we  may  be  led  in  the  coming 
year  to  do  our  duty,  I  ask  for  more.  I  pray  for 
the  grace  of  Jesus  Christ ;  that  in  our  homes 
there  may  be  more  of  considerateness,  that  in 
our  college  there  may  be  a  natural  and  spon- 
taneous self-forgetf ulness,  a  free  and  generous 
offering  of  uncalled-for  kindness.  Some  of 
us  are  able  to  do  much  for  others,  to  give,  to 
teach,  to  govern,  to  employ.  There  is  a  way 
of  doing  this  which  doubles  its  effect.  It  is 
the  way  of  grace.  Some  of  us  must  be  for 
the  most  part  receivers  of  instruction  or  kind- 
Si 


in  tljc  College 

ness.  There  is  a  way  of  receiving  kindness 
which  is  among  the  most  beautiful  traits  of 
life.  It  is  the  way  of  grace.  No  one  of  us, 
if  he  be  permitted  to  live  on  in  this  coming 
year,  can  escape  this  choice  between  obliga- 
tion and  opportunity,  between  the  way  of  life 
which  is  discreet  and  prudent  and  the  way  of 
life  which  is  simply  beautiful.  When  these 
inevitable  issues  come,  then  the  prayer,  which 
may  lead  us  to  the  higher  choice,  must  be  the 
prayer  with  which  the  Bible  ends  ;  the  bene- 
diction of  the  Christian  spirit ;  even  this,  — 
that  the  grace  of  Jesus  Christ  may  be  with  us 
all. 

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in  tfjc  College 

XXXIII 

THE  EVERLASTING  ARMS 
Deuteronomy  xxxiii.  27. 

)NDERNEATH  are  the  everlasting 
arms," — that  was  the  repeated  bur- 
den of  the  great  men  of  Israel.  They 
lived  in  the  midst  of  national  calamities  and 
distresses.  They  were  defeated,  puzzled, 
baffled.  The  way  looked  dark.  Then  they 
fall  back  on  the  one  great  re-establishing 
thought :  after  all,  it  is  God's  world.  It  is 
not  going  to  ruin.  Changes  which  seemed 
tremendous  are  not  fatal  or  final.  Israel 
dwells  in  safety,  for  God  holds  us  in  his 
arms. 

We  need  some  such  broad,  deep  confidence 
as  we  enter  a  new  year.  We  get  involved  in 
small  issues  and  engrossed  in  personal  prob- 
lems, and  people  sometimes  seem  so  mali- 
cious, and  things  seem  to  be  going  so  wrong 
that  it  is  as  if  we  heard  the  noise  of  some 
approaching  Niagara.  Then  we  fall  back  on 
the  truth  that  after  all  it  is  not  our  world. 
We  can  blight  it  or  help  it,  but  we  do  not 
83 


in  tljc  College  Cljajkl 

decide  its  issues.  In  the  midst  of  such  a 
time  of  social  distress,  Mr.  Lowell  in  one  of 
his  lectures  wrote  :  "  I  take  great  comfort 
in  God.  I  think  He  is  considerably  amused 
sometimes,  but  on  the  whole  loves  us  and 
would  not  let  us  get  at  the  matchbox  if  He 
did  not  know  that  the  frame  of  the  universe 
was  fireproof."  That  is  the  modern  state- 
ment of  the  underlying  faith  and  self-control 
and  patience  which  come  of  confessing  that 
in  this  world  it  is  not  we  alone  who  do  it  all. 
"  Why  so  hot,  little  man  ? "  says  Mr.  Emer- 
son. "I  take  great  comfort  in  God,"  says 
Mr.  Lowell ;  and  the  Old  Testament,  with  a 
much  tenderer  note  repeats  :  "  Underneath 
are  the  everlasting  arms." 


in  t&c  College 

XXXIV 

THE  COMFORT  OF  THE  TRUTH 
John  xiv.  14,  1 6. 

(ESUS  says  that  he  will  send  a  Com- 
forter, and  that  it  will  be  the  spirit  of 
the  truth.  Many  people  say  just  the 
opposite  of  this.  If  you  want  comfort,  they 
think  that  you  must  not  have  truth.  Is  not  the 
truth  often  an  uncomforting  and  uncomfort- 
able thing  ?  Too  much  truth  seems  dangerous. 
The  spirit  of  the  truth  is  a  hard,  cold  spirit. 
Should  not  a  comforter  shade  and  soften  the 
truth  ?  But  Jesus  answers  there  is  nothing  so 
permanently  comforting  as  the  truth.  Why, 
for  instance,  is  it  that  we  judge  people  so  se- 
verely ?  It  is  not  as  a  rule  that  we  know  the 
whole  truth  about  them,  but  that  we  know  only 
a  fragment  of  the  truth.  The  more  we  know, 
the  gentler  grow  our  judgments.  Would  it 
not  be  so  if  people  who  judge  you  should 
know  all  your  secret  hopes  and  conflicts  and 
dreams  ?  Why  is  it  again  that  people  are  so 
despondent  about  their  own  times,  their  com- 
munity, the  tendency  of  things  ?  It  is  because 
85 


in  tfjc  College  Cbapcl 

they  have  not  entered  deeply  enough  into  the 
truth  of  the  times.  The  more  they  know, 
the  more  they  hope.  And  why  is  it  that  God 
is  all-merciful  ?  It  is  because  He  is  also  all- 
wise.  He  knows  all  about  us,  our  desires  and 
our  repentances,  and  so  in  the  midst  of  our 
wrong -doing  He  continues  merciful.  His 
Holy  Spirit  bears  in  one  hand  comfort  and  in 
the  other  truth.  How  does  a  student  get 
peace  of  mind  ?  He  finds  it  when  he  gets  hold 
of  some  stable  truth.  It  may  not  be  a  large 
truth,  but  it  is  a  real  truth,  and  therefore  it  is 
a  comfort.  How  does  a  man  in  his  moral 
struggles  get  comfort  ?  He  gets  it  not  by 
swerving,  or  dodging,  or  compromising,  but 
by  being  true.  The  only  permanent  comfort 
is  in  the  sense  of  fidelity.  You  are  like  a  sailor 
in  the  storm ;  it  is  dark  about  you,  the  wind 
howls,  the  stars  vanish.  What  gives  you  com- 
fort ?  It  is  the  knowledge  that  one  thing  is 
true.  Thank  God,  you  have  your  compass, 
and  the  tremulous  little  needle  can  be  trusted. 
You  bend  over  it  with  your  lantern  in  the  dark 
and  know  where  you  are  going,  and  that  re- 
news your  courage.  You  have  the  spirit  of 
the  truth,  and  it  is  your  comforter. 
86 


in  tljc  College 

XXXV 

THE  SWORD  OF  THE   SPIRIT 
EpJusians  vi.  14-17. 

this  passage  the  apostle  is  thinking 
of  the  Christian  life  as  full  of  conflict 
and  warfare.  It  needs  what  he  calls 
the  good  soldier  of  Jesus  Christ,  and  for  the 
moment  St.  Paul  is  considering  how  such  a 
soldier  should  be  armed  for  such  a  war.  He 
is  like  some  knight  of  the  Middle  Ages, 
standing  in  his  castle-yard  and  serving  out  to 
his  vassals  the  weapons  they  need  for  the  bat- 
tle which  is  near  at  hand.  "Take  all  your 
armor,"  he  says.  "This  is  no  holiday  affair, 
no  dress  parade.  You  are  to  fight  against 
principalities  and  powers.  So  take  the  whole 
armor  of  God."  And  then  he  puts  it  into 
their  hands.  There  is,  however,  one  curious 
thing  about  this  armor.  It  has  but  one 
offensive  weapon.  The  soldier  of  Jesus  Christ 
is  given,  to  defend  himself  from  his  enemies, 
the  shield  of  faith,  the  tunic  of  truth,  the  hel- 
met of  salvation ;  but  to  fight,  to  overcome, 
to  disarm,  he  has  but  one  weapon,  —  the 
87 


in  t&e  CoIUffe  Cftapel 

sword  of  the  spirit.  Is  it  possible,  then,  that 
the  Spirit  of  God  entering  into  a  man  can  be 
to  him  a  sword  ;  that  a  man's  character  has  this 
aggressive  quality ;  that  a  man  fights  just  by 
what  he  is  ?  Yes,  that  seems  to  be  the  apos- 
tle's argument.  Looking  at  all  the  conflicts 
and  collisions  of  life,  its  differences  of  opinion, 
its  causes  to  be  won,  he  thinks  that  the  best 
fighting  weapon  is  the  spirit  of  a  man's  life. 
Behind  all  argument  and  persuasion  the  only 
absolute  argument,  the  final  persuasion,  is  the 
simple  witness  of  the  spirit.  When  a  man 
wants  to  make  a  cause  he  believes  in  win,  his 
aggressive  force  lies  not  in  what  he  says  about 
that  cause,  but  in  what  that  cause  has  made 
of  him.  He  wins  his  victory  without  striking 
a  blow  when  he  wields  the  sword  of  the  Spirit. 
He  comes  like  the  soft,  fresh  morning  among 
us,  and  we  simply  open  our  windows  and  yield 
to  it,  greeting  it  with  joy.  It  is  the  air  we 
want  to  breathe,  and  we  accept  it  as  our  own. 
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in  t&t  Collrjc  Chapel 

XXXVI 
LIFE  IS  AN  ARROW 

John  xiv.  6. 

JHEN  Jesus  says  :  "  I  am  the  way,  and 
the  truth,  and  the  life,"  he  names  the 
three  things  which  a  man  must  have 
in  order  to  lead  a  straight  life.  Such  a  man 
must  have  first  a  way  to  go,  and  then  a 
truth  to  reach,  and  then  life  enough  to  get 
there.  He  needs  first  a  direction,  and  then 
an  end,  and  then  a  force.  Some  lives  have  no 
path  to  go  by,  and  some  no  end  to  go  to,  and 
some  no  force  to  make  them  go.  Now  Jesus 
says  that  the  Christian  life  has  all  three.  It 
has  intention,  the  decision  which  way  to  go  ; 
it  has  determination,  the  finding  of  a  truth  to 
reach  ;  it  has  power,  the  inner  dynamic  of  the 
life  of  Christ.  Life,  as  has  been  lately  said 
by  one  of  our  own  preachers,  is  like  an  arrow. 
It  must  have  its  course,  it  must  have  its 
mark,  and  it  must  have  the  power  to  go. 

"  Life  is  an  arrow,  therefore  you  must  know 
What  mark  to  aim  at,  how  to  bend  the  bow, 
Then  draw  it  to  its  head,  and  let  it  go."  l 

i  Henry  ran  Dyke,  D.  D,  in  the  Outlook  for  Feb.  23, 1895. 
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XXXVII 

THE  DECLINE  OF  ENTHUSIASM 
Revelation  ii.  1-7. 

DO  not  propose  to  consider  the  char- 
acter or  intention  of  this  mystical 
Book  of  Revelation.  However  it  may 
be  regarded,  it  is  first  of  all  a  series  of  mes- 
sages written  in  the  name  of  the  risen  Christ 
to  the  churches  of  Asia,  singling  out  each  in 
turn,  pointing  out  its  special  defects,  and  ex- 
horting it  to  its  special  mission  ;  and  there  is 
something  so  modern,  or  rather  so  universal 
about  these  messages  to  the  churches  that  in 
spite  of  their  strange  language  and  figures  of 
speech  they  often  seem  like  messages  to  the 
churches  of  America  to-day.  First  the  word 
comes  to  the  chief  church  of  the  region,  at 
Ephesus.  It  was  a  great  capital  city,  with 
much  prosperity  and  splendor,  and  the  church 
there  abounded  in  good  works.  The  writer 
appreciates  all  this  :  "  I  know  thy  works,  and 
thy  toil  and  patience,  and  that  thou  canst 
not  bear  evil  men."  It  was  a  substantial,  busy 
city  church.  What  was  lacking  in  the  church 
90 


in  tbc  Collffc  Cfcapcl 

of  Ephesus  ?  It  had  fallen  away,  says  the 
message,  from  its  first  enthusiasm.  It  had 
"lost  its  first  love."  The  eagerness  of  its 
first  conversion  had  gone  out  of  it.  It  had 
settled  down  into  the  ways  of  an  established 
church,  with  plenty  of  good  works  and  good 
people,  but  with  the  loss  of  that  first  sponta- 
neous, passionate  loyalty ;  and  unless  it  recov- 
ered this  enthusiasm  "its  candlestick  would 
be  removed  out  of  its  place,"  and  its  light 
would  go  out. 

How  modern  that  sounds  !  How  precisely 
it  is  like  some  large  church  in  some  large  city 
to-day,  a  respectable  and  respected  and  useful 
church,  a  Sunday  club,  a  self-satisfied  circle ; 
and  how  it  explains  that  mysterious  way  in 
which,  in  many  such  a  large  church,  a  sort  of 
dry-rot  seems  to  set  in,  and  even  where  the 
church  seems  to  prosper  it  is  declining,  and 
some  day  it  dies  !  It  has  lost  its  first  love,  and 
its  candle  first  flickers  and  then  goes  out. 

Indeed,  how  true  the  same  story  is  of  many 
an  individual  inside  or  outside  the  church,  per- 
fectly respectable  and  entirely  respected,  but 
outgrowing  his  enthusiasms.  He  becomes,  by 
degrees,  first  self-repressed  and  unemotional, 
then  a  cynical  dilettante.  How  you  wish  he 
9« 


in  t&e  College 

would  do  something  impulsive,  impetuous, 
even  foolish  !  How  you  would  like  to  detect 
him  in  an  enthusiasm  !  His  life  has  moved  on 
like  the  river  Rhine,  which  has  its  boisterous 
Alpine  youth,  and  then  runs  more  and  more 
slowly,  until  in  Holland  we  can  hardly  detect 
whether  it  has  any  current. 

"  It  drags  its  slow  length  through  the  hot,  dry  land, 
And  dies  away  in  the  monotonous  strand." 

That  is  the  church  of  Ephesus,  and  that  is 
the  man  from  Ephesus,  and  unless  they  re- 
pent and  regain  their  power  of  enthusiasm 
their  light  goes  out.  Ephesus  lies  there,  a 
cluster  of  huts  beside  a  heap  of  ruins,  and  the 
future  of  the  world  is  with  the  nations  and 
churches  and  people  who  view  the  world  with 
fresh,  unspoiled,  appreciative  hope. 
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XXXVIII 
THE  CROWN   OF  LIFE 

Revelation  ii.  8-10. 


Church  of  Ephesus  needed  a  re- 
buke ;  the  Church  at  Smyrna  needed 
an  encouragement.  The  first  was  a 
prosperous,  busy  church,  without  spiritual 
vitality,  and  the  prophecy  was  that  its  light 
should  go  out.  The  second  was  a  persecuted 
church,  with  much  tribulation  and  poverty, 
and  the  promise  was  that  for  its  faithfulness 
it  should  have  a  crown  of  life.  And  if  the 
traveller,  as  he  stands  among  the  ruins  of 
Ephesus,  cannot  help  thinking  how  its  candle- 
stick has  been  removed,  so  he  must  think  of 
the  reward  of  fidelity,  as  he  stands  among 
the  busy  docks  and  bustling  life  of  Smyrna. 

A  crown  of  life  !  There  is  no  discovery  of 
experience  more  important  in  a  man's  life 
than  the  discovery  of  its  legitimate  rewards. 
A  man  undertakes  to  do  the  best  he  can 
with  his  powers  and  capacities,  and  inquires 
some  day  for  the  natural  reward  of  his  fidel- 
ity. Shall  he  have  gratitude,  or  recognition, 
or  praise  ?  Any  one  of  these  things  may  come 
93 


in  t&e  €olleje 

to  him,  but  any  one  of  them,  or  all  of  them, 
may  elude  him  ;  and  all  sooner  or  later  show 
themselves  to  be  accidents  of  his  experience, 
and  not  its  natural  and  essential  issue.  Then 
he  discovers  that  there  is  but  one  legitimate 
reward  of  life,  and  that  is  increase  of  life, 
more  of  power  and  capacity  and  vitality  and 
effectiveness.  What  is  the  reward  of  learn- 
ing one's  lessons  ?  Marks,  or  praise,  or  dis- 
tinction, may  come  of  this,  or  they  may  not. 
The  legitimate  reward  is  simply  the  power  to 
learn  other  lessons.  The  expenditure  of  force 
has  increased  the  supply  of  force ;  the  use 
of  capacity  has  developed  capacity.  What 
is  the  reward  of  taking  physical  exercise  ?  It 
is  not  athletic  prizes,  or  athletic  glory ;  it  is 
strength.  You  have  sought  strength,  and 
you  get  strength.  The  crown  of  athletic  life 
is  increase  of  athletic  vitality.  What  is  the 
reward  of  keeping  your  temper  ?  It  is  the  in- 
creased power  of  self-control.  What  is  the 
reward  of  doing  your  duty  as  well  as  you  can  ? 
It  is  the  ability  to  do  your  duty  better.  Out 
of  the  duty  faithfully  done  opens  the  way  to 
meet  the  larger  duty.  You  have  been  faith- 
ful over  a  few  things,  and  you  become  the 
ruler  over  many  things. 
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in  the  College  Chnprl 

And  what  is  the  crown  of  the  whole  of  life 
lived  faithfully  here?  It  is  not  a  crown  of 
gold  or  gems  in  another  life  ;  it  is  simply 
more  life ;  a  broader  use  of  power,  a  healthier 
capacity,  a  larger  usefulness.  You  are  faith- 
ful unto  death,  through  the  misapprehensions 
and  imperfections  and  absence  of  appreciation 
or  gratitude  in  this  preparatory  world,  and 
then  there  is  offered  to  you  inevitably  and 
legitimately  the  crown  of  a  larger,  more  ser- 
viceable, more  effective  life. 
95 


in  t&e  College 


xxxix 

THE  HIDDEN   MANNA  AND  THE 
WHITE  STONE 

Revelation  ii.  12-17. 

'OTH  of  these  are  Jewish  symbols. 
One  refers  to  that  food  which,  as 
Moses  commanded,  was  kept  in  the 
sanctuary  and  eaten  by  the  priest  alone ;  the 
other  apparently  refers  to  a  sacred  stone 
worn  by  the  priest,  with  an  inscription  on  it 
known  only  to  him.  Both  symbols  mean  to 
teach  that  the  Christian  believer  has  an  im- 
mediate and  personal  intimacy  with  God. 
There  is  no  sacerdotal  intermediation  for  him. 
He  can  go  straight  to  the  altar  and  take  of 
the  sacred  bread.  He  wears  on  his  own 
breast  the  mark  of  God's  communication.  It 
is  the  doctrine  of  the  universal  priesthood  of 
believers  ;  the  highest  promise  to  a  faithful 
church.  But  on  this  white  stone,  the  mes- 
sage says,  there  is  a  name  written  which  no 
man  knoweth  save  he  that  receiveth  it.  How 
quickly  that  goes  home  to  many  a  faithful 
life.  Hidden  from  all  that  can  be  read  by 
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in  t&e  CoIUfft  £jjapd 

others  is  the  writing  which  one  bears  upon 
his  own  breast,  legible  only  to  himself  and 
to  his  God.  Think  how  hardly  and  care- 
lessly people  try  to  judge  one's  life,  to  read 
its  characteristics  of  strength  or  weakness. 
Think  how  we  all  thus  deal  in  hasty  judg- 
ment, stamping  our  neighbors  as  jovial  or 
moody,  generous  or  selfish,  as  kind  or  stern, 
as  sinner  or  saint  ;  while  all  the  time,  deeper 
than  any  interpretation  of  ours  can  reach, 
there  is  the  central  sanctuary  of  the  man's 
own  soul,  where  is  worn  against  his  breast 
the  real  title  which  to  his  own  consciousness 
he  bears,  and  which  may  quite  contradict  all 
external  judgments.  What  is  written  on 
that  interior  life  ?  What  is  that  name  you 
bear  which  no  man  knoweth  save  you  ;  —  that 
life  of  yourself  which  is  hidden  with  Christ 
in  God  ?  That  is  the  most  solemn  question 
which  any  man  can  ask  himself  as  he  bends 
to  say  his  silent  prayer. 

Is  it  just  your  own  name,  the  badge  of 
selfishness ;  or  is  it  some  vow  of  irresponsi- 
bility, —  Am  I  my  brother's  keeper  ?  —  or  is 
it  just  a  sheer  blank  white  stone,  marking 
a  life  without  intention  or  character  at  all  ? 
Or  is  there  perhaps  written  there  the  pure 
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in  t&e  College 

demand  to  be  of  use  ?  —  "  For  their  sakes  I 
sanctify  myself  ;  "  —  or  is  there  written  on 
your  heart  the  name  of  God,  or  of  his  Christ, 
so  that  this  interior  maxim  reads :  "  I  live, 
yet  not  I,  but  Christ  that  liveth  in  me  "  ? 
98 


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XL 

THE  MORNING   STAR 
Revelation  ii.  18-28. 

[HE  morning  star  is  the  symbol  of 
promise,  the  sign  that  the  dawn  is 
not  far  away.  Thyatira  was  a  little 
place,  with  a  weak  church,  with  small  hopes 
and  great  discouragements,  much  troubled  by 
the  work  of  a  false  prophetess,  tempted  by 
"the  deep  things  of  Satan,"  as  the  message 
says,  and  yet  to  it  the  promise  is  committed, 
that  it  shall  have  authority  over  the  nations, 
and  receive  "  the  morning  star."  It  was  the 
same  great  promise  that  had  been  already 
given  to  the  early  Christians  :  "  Fear  not, 
little  flock,  for  it  is  my  Father's  good  pleasure 
to  give  you  the  kingdom."  It  was  the  same 
amazing  optimism  which  made  Jesus  look 
about  him,  as  he  stood  with  a  dozen  humble 
followers,  and  say :  "  Lift  up  your  eyes  and 
look  at  the  fields,  they  are  white  already  to 
my  harvest." 

There  is  certainly  passing  over  the  world 
in  our  day  a  great  wave  of  intellectual  and 
99 


fflormmrs  in  tbt  Collar 

spiritual  discouragement  and  despondency. 
What  with  philosophical  pessimism  and  social 
agitations  and  literary  decadence  and  political 
corruption  and  moral  looseness,  a  great  many 
persons  are  beginning  to  feel  that  the  end  of 
the  century  is  an  end  of  faith,  and  are  not 
able  to  discern  in  the  darkness  of  the  time 
any  morning  star.  As  one  distinguished 
author  has  said  :  "  This  is  not  a  time  of  the 
eclipse  of  faith,  but  a  time  of  the  collapse  of 
faith."  It  was  much  the  same  in  the  times  of 
Thyatira.  There  was  the  same  luxury  and 
self-indulgence  in  the  Roman  world,  the  same 
social  restlessness,  the  same  intellectual  de- 
spondency. Now,  who  is  it  that  can  view 
these  perturbations  of  the  world  with  a  tran- 
quil and  rational  hope  ?  I  answer,  that  it  is 
only  he  who  views  his  own  time  in  the  light 
of  the  eternal  purposes  of  God.  The  religious 
man  is  bound  to  be  an  optimist,  not  with  the 
foolish  optimism  which  blinks  the  facts  of 
life ;  but  with  the  sober  optimism  which  be- 
lieves that  — 

"  Step  by  step,  since  time  began, 
We  see  the  steady  gain  of  man." 

It  may  be  dark  as  pitch  in  the  world  of  specu- 
lative thought,  but  religion  discerns  the  morn- 
loo 


in  tfcr  College  Cljapcl 

ing  star.  It  believes  in  its  own  time.  It 
believes  that  somehow  "  good  will  be  the  final 
goal  of  ill."  Even  in  the  perplexities  and 
disasters  of  its  own  experience  it  is  not  over- 
whelmed. It  is  cast  down,  but  not  destroyed. 
It  is  saved  by  hope.  It  lifts  its  eyes  and  be- 
holds through  the  clouds  the  gleam  of  the 

morning  star. 

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XLI 
LIVING    AS  DEAD 

Reflation  iii.  i. 

S  there  ever  a  message  of  sterner 
irony  than  this  to  the  Church  of 
Sardis  :  "  Thou  hast  a  name  that 
thou  livest,  and  thou  art  dead "  !  We  may 
suppose  that  it  was  a  church  of  apparent 
prosperity,  with  all  the  machinery  of  church 
life,  its  ritual,  and  officers,  and  committees, 
all  in  working  order ;  and  yet,  when  one  got 
at  the  heart  of  it,  there  was  no  vitality.  It 
was  a  dead  church.  It  could  show  —  as  the 
passage  says  —  no  works  fulfilled  before 
God.  It  was  like  a  tree  which  seems  all  vig- 
orous, but  which,  when  one  thrusts  into  the 
heart  of  it,  proves  to  be  pervaded  by  dry-rot. 
There  are  plenty  of  such  churches  still, 
—  churches  which  have  a  name  that  they  are 
living,  but  are  dead.  They  are  counted  in 
the  denominational  year-book ;  they  go  through 
the  motions  of  life  ;  but  where  is  their  quick- 
ening, communicating,  vitalizing  power  ? 
What  are  they  but  mechanical,  formal,  institu- 
tional things,  and  how  sudden  sometimes,  like 
1 02 


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the  falling  of  a  dead  tree,  is  the  collapse  of  a 
dead  church ! 

There  is  the  same  story  to  tell  of  some 
people.  They  have  a  name  that  they  are 
living,  but  they  are  practically  dead.  For 
what  is  it,  according  to  the  New  Testament, 
which  makes  one  live,  and  when  is  it  that  one 
comes  to  die  ?  "To  be  carnally  minded,"  an- 
swers St.  Paul,  "  is  death,  and  to  be  spiritually 
minded  is  life."  "He  that  heareth  my  say- 
ings," answers  Jesus,  "  hath  passed  from  death 
into  life."  What  a  wonderful  word  is  that ! 
It  is  not  a  promise  that  the  true  Christian 
shall  some  day,  when  his  body  dies,  pass  into 
an  eternal  life.  It  is  an  announcement  that 
when  one  enters  into  the  spirit  of  Christ  he 
passes,  now,  in  this  present  world,  from  all 
that  can  be  fairly  called  death,  into  all  that 
can  be  rationally  called  life.  Under  this  New 
Testament  definition,  then,  a  man  may  sup- 
pose himself  to  be  alive  and  healthy,  when  he 
is  really  sick,  dying,  dead.  A  man  may  per- 
haps, as  he  says,  see  life,  while  he  may  be 
really  seeing  nothing  but  death.  Or  a  man 
may  be,  as  we  say,  dying,  and  be,  in  the  New 
Testament  sense,  full  of  an  abundant  and 
transfiguring  life. 

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in  tlje  College  CJjnpel 

And  so  it  becomes  an  entirely  practical 
question,  which  one  may  ask  himself  any 
morning,  "  Am  I  alive  to-day,  or  am  I  dead  ? 
Is  it  only  that  I  have  the  name  of  living, 
a  sort  of  directory-existence,  a  page  in  the 
college  records,  a  place  in  the  list  of  my  class, 
while  in  fact  there  is  dry-rot  in  my  soul  ?  Or 
is  there  any  movement  of  the  life  of  God 
in  me,  of  quickening  and  refreshing  life,  of 
generous  activity  and  transmissive  vitality  ? 
Then  death  is  swallowed  up  in  victory,  and 
I  am  partaking  even  in  this  present  world  of 
the  life  that  does  not  die." 
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XLII 

THE  OPEN  DOOR 
Revelation  iii.  8. 

FEW  years  ago,  at  the  first  service 
of  the  college  year,  one  of  our 
preachers  took  for  his  text  this  mes- 
sage to  the  church  at  Philadelphia  :  "  Behold, 
I  have  set  before  thee  an  open  door  ;  "  and  it 
has  always  seemed  to  me  to  represent  with 
precision  the  spirit  of  our  worship  here.  We 
have  abandoned  the  principle  of  compulsion. 
We  do  not  force  young  men  of  twenty  to 
come  here  and  say  their  prayers.  We  simply 
set  before  them  an  open  door.  The  privilege 
of  worship  is  permitted  to  them  from  day  to 
day,  and  religion  stands  among  us,  not  as  a 
part  of  college  discipline,  but  as  the  supreme 
privilege  of  a  manly  human  soul.  Whosoever 
will,  let  him  take  the  water  of  life  freely.  In- 
deed, this  same  text  represents  the  spirit  of 
our  whole  university  life.  What  we  call  the 
elective  system  is  a  method  of  invitation  and 
persuasion.  It  multiplies  opportunities.  It 
does  not  compel  the  allegiance  of  the  indif- 
ferent. He  that  is  lazy,  let  him  be  lazy  still. 
105 


$formnff0  in  t&e  College  Chapel 

The  university  sets  before  the  mind  of  youth 
its  open  door. 

And  this,  indeed,  is  what  one  asks  of  life. 
What  should  a  free  state  in  this  modern  world 
guarantee  to  all  its  citizens  ?  Not  that  equal- 
ity of  condition  for  which  many  in  our  days 
plead,  the  dead  level  of  insured  and  effortless 
comfort,  but  equality  of  opportunity,  a  free 
and  fair  chance  for  every  man  to  be  and  to  do 
his  best.  That  land  is  best  governed  where 
the  door  of  opportunity  stands  wide  open  to 
the  humblest  of  its  citizens,  so  that  no  man 
can  shut  it. 

And  what  is  the  relation  of  religion  to  the 
life  of  man,  if  it  be  not  of  this  same  enlarging 
and  emancipating  kind  ?  Here  we  are,  all  shut 
in  by  our  routine  of  business  and  study  and 
preoccupation,  and  religion  simply  opens  the 
door  outward  from  this  narrowness  of  life  into 
a  larger  and  a  purer  world.  It  is  as  if  you  were 
bending  some  evening  over  your  books  in  the 
exhausted  air  of  your  little  room,  and  as  if  you 
should  rise  from  your  task,  and  pass  out  into 
the  night,  and  the  open  door  should  deliver 
you  from  your  weariness  and  your  self -absorp- 
tion, as  you  stood  in  the  serene  companionship 
of  the  infinite  heavens  and  the  myriad  of  stars. 
1 06 


in  t&e  College  Cljajel 


XLIII 

BEHOLD,  I  STAND  AT  THE  DOOR  AND 
KNOCK 

Revelation  iii.  20. 

the  church  at  Philadelphia  it  was 
promised  that  the  door  should  be 
L#  opened  ;  but  here  was  a  church  at 
Laodicea  which  had  deliberately  shut  its  door 
on  the  higher  life.  It  was  a  church  that  was 
neither  cold  nor  hot,  a  lukewarm,  indifferent, 
spiritless  people,  and  to  such  a  people,  will- 
fully barring  out  the  revelations  of  God,  conies 
the  Christ  in  this  wonderful  figure,  standing 
at  the  door  like  a  weary  traveller,  asking  to 
be  let  in.  Such  a  picture  just  reverses  the 
common  view  which  one  is  apt  to  take  of  the 
religious  life.  We  commonly  think  of  truth 
as  hiding  itself  within  its  closed  door  and  of 
ourselves  as  trying  to  get  in  to  it.  We  speak 
of  finding  Christ,  or  proving  God,  or  getting 
religion,  as  if  all  these  things  were  mysteries 
to  be  explored,  hidden  behind  doors  which 
must  be  unlocked  ;  as  if,  in  the  relation  be- 
tween man  and  God,  man  did  all  the  search- 
ing, and  God  was  a  hidden  God 
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in  tfcc  College  Cbapcl 

But  the  fundamental  fact  of  the  religious 
life  is  this, —  that  the  power  and  love  of  God 
are  seeking  man ;  that  before  we  love  Him, 
He  loves  us  ;  that  before  we  know  Him,  He 
knows  us  ;  that  antecedent  to  our  recognition 
of  Him  must  be  our  receptivity  of  Him. 
Coleridge  said  that  he  believed  in  the  Bible 
because  it  found  him.  It  is  for  the  same 
reason  that  man  believes  in  God.  God  finds 
him.  It  is  not  the  sheep  which  go  looking 
for  the  shepherd,  it  is  the  shepherd  who  finds 
the  sheep,  and  when  they  hear  his  voice,  they 
follow  him. 

This  is  not  contrary  to  nature.  The  same 
principle  is  to  be  noticed  in  regard  to  all  truth. 
Take,  for  instance,  any  scientific  discovery  of 
a  physical  force,  like  that  which  we  call  the 
force  of  electricity.  There  is  nothing  new 
about  this  wonderful  power.  It  has  always 
been  about  us,  playing  through  the  sky,  and 
inviting  the  mind  of  man.  Then,  some  day,  a 
few  men  open  their  minds  to  the  significance 
of  this  force,  and  appreciate  how  it  may  be 
applied  to  the  common  uses  of  life.  That  is 
what  we  call  a  discovery  ;  it  is  the  opening  of 
the  door  of  the  mind ;  and  one  of  the  most 
impressive  things  about  science  to-day  is  to 
1 08 


in  tbc  College  €haptl 

consider  how  many  other  secrets  of  the  uni- 
verse are  at  this  moment  knocking  at  our 
doors,  and  waiting  to  be  let  in  ;  and  to  per- 
ceive how  senseless  and  unreceptive  we  must 
seem  to  an  omniscient  mind,  when  so  much 
truth,  standing  near  us,  is  beaten  back  from 
our  closed  minds  and  wills.  It  is  the  same 
with  religious  truth.  Here  are  our  lives,  shut 
in,  limited,  self-absorbed ;  and  here  are  the 
messages  of  God,  knocking  at  our  door  ;  and 
between  the  two  only  one  barrier,  the  barrier 
of  our  own  wills.  Religious  education  is  sim- 
ply the  opening  of  the  door  of  the  heart.  A 
Christian  discipleship  is  simply  that  alertness 
and  receptivity  which  hears  the  knocking 
and  welcomes  the  Spirit  which  says :  "  If 
any  man  will  but  open  the  door,  I  will  come 
in  to  him,  and  sup  with  him,  and  he  with 
me." 

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tn  tbc  College  €|)spcl 


XLIV 

HE  THAT  OVERCOMETH 
Revelation  xxi.  7. 

each  one  of  these  letters  to  the 
churches  there  is  repeated  like  a  re- 
frain, a  sort  of  motif  which  announces 
the  character  of  all,  —  this  final  phrase  :  "  He 
that  overcometh."  He  is  to  receive  the 
promise,  he  is  to  inherit  these  things,  he  is 
to  be  the  stone  in  the  temple  of  God.  The 
reward  and  blessing  are  to  be  not  for  the 
shirks  or  runaways  or  easy-going  of  the  world, 
but  for  those  who,  taking  life  just  as  it  is  with 
all  its  hardness,  overcome  it.  It  is  the  manly 
summons  from  the  soft  theory  of  life  to  the 
principle  which  one  may  call  that  of  progress 
through  overcoming  resistance. 

A  great  many  lives  are  spoiled  by  the  soft 
theory  of  life.  They  expect  to  get  out  of  life 
a  comfort  which  is  not  in  it  to  give.  They 
go  about  looking,  so  to  speak,  for  a  "  soft 
course  "  in  the  curriculum  of  life,  hoping  to 
enroll  in  it  and  be  free  from  trouble.  They 
ask  of  their  religion  that  it  shall  make  life 
easy  and  safe  and  clear.  But  the  trouble  is 
no 


in  tbc  College  Cbaprl 

that  the  elective  pamphlet  of  life  does  not 
announce  a  single  soft  course.  The  people 
who  try  thus  to  live  are  simply  courting  dis- 
aster and  despair.  Some  day,  perhaps  in 
some  tragic  moment,  every  man  has  to  learn 
that  life  is  not  an  easy  thing,  but  that  it  is  at 
times  fearfully  and  solemnly  hard.  Nothing 
is  more  plainly  written  on  the  facts  of  life 
than  this,  —  that  life  was  meant  to  be  hard. 
Trouble  and  disaster,  and  the  inevitable  blows 
of  experience,  are  absolutely  certain  to  teach 
this  truth  sooner  or  later,  and  the  sooner  one 
learns  it  the  better  for  his  soul.  And  if  life 
was  not  meant  to  be  easy,  what  was  it  meant 
for  ?  It  was  meant  to  be  overcome.  It  stands 
before  one  like  the  friction  of  the  world  of 
nature,  which  is  always  seeming  to  retard 
one's  motion,  but  which  makes  really  the  only 
condition  under  which  we  move  at  all.  If 
there  is  to  be  any  motion  through  life,  then 
it  must  be  by  overcoming  its  friction.  If  life 
was  meant  just  to  stand  still,  then  it  might 
stagnate  in  a  soft  place ;  but  life  was  meant 
to  move,  and  the  only  way  of  motion  is  by 
overcoming  friction,  and  the  hardness  of  the 
world  becomes  the  very  condition  of  spirit- 
ual progress.  What  we  call  the  rub  of  life  is 
in 


in  tbc  College  Cbnpcl 

then  what  makes  living  possible.  What  we 
call  the  burdens  of  life  are  the  discipline  of 
its  power.  Not  to  him  who  meets  no  resist- 
ance, nor  to  him  whose  shoulder  is  chafed  by 
no  cross,  but  to  him  who  overcometh  is  the 
promise  given  that  God  will  be  his  God,  and 
that  he  shall  be  God's  son. 

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in  tbe  College  Cfjapel 

XLV 

THE  PRODIGALITY  OF  PROVIDENCE 
Matthew  xiii.  1-9. 

WISH  to  dwell  for  several  mornings 
on  this  parable  of  the  sower,  and  for 
to-day  I  call  attention  to  the  air  of 
prodigality  which  pervades  this  story.  There 
seems  to  be  an  immense  amount  of  seed 
wasted.  Some  of  it  falls  on  the  roadway; 
some  of  it  is  snatched  away  by  the  birds; 
some  of  it  is  caught  among  the  bushes.  Yet 
the  sower  proceeds  in  no  niggardly  fashion. 
He  strides  away  across  the  field  scattering 
the  seed  broadcast,  far  beyond  the  border 
where  he  expects  a  crop,  for  he  knows  that, 
though  much  shall  be  wasted,  whatever  seed 
may  fall  on  good  ground  will  have  miraculous 
increase.  There  may  be  prodigality  of  waste, 
but  there  shall  be  prodigality  of  reproduction. 
If  but  one  seed  in  thirty  takes  root  in  good 
soil  it  may  produce  thirty  or  sixty  or  a  hun- 
dred fold. 

Such    is    the   prodigality   of    Providence. 
And  it  comes  close  to  many  experiences,  and 
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in  tbe  College 

interprets  many  perplexities  of  life.  A  man 
goes  his  way  through  life  scattering  his  ef- 
forts, distributing  his  energy,  doing  his  work 
as  broadly  and  generously  as  he  can,  and  some 
day  he  notices  what  a  very  large  proportion 
of  all  that  he  does  comes  to  nothing.  Much 
of  the  soil  where  he  sows  seems  hard  and 
barren,  and  he  might  as  well  be  trying  to  raise 
wheat  on  a  stone  pavement.  It  seems  to  be 
simply  effort  thrown  away.  But  then  some 
other  day  this  man  makes  this  other  discov- 
ery, —  that  some  very  slight  effort  or  endeavor 
or  sacrifice  or  word  has  been  infinitely  more 
fruitful  than  he  could  have  dreamed.  It  was 
an  insignificant  thing  which  he  did,  but  it 
happened  to  fall  at  the  right  time  in  the 
right  place,  and  he  is  almost  startled  at  its 
productiveness. 

And  so  he  takes  his  lesson  from  the 
prodigality  of  Providence.  Of  course  it  will 
happen  that  the  great  proportion  of  his  ef- 
forts will  come  to  nothing.  Of  course  he  is 
to  be  misjudged  and  ineffective  and  barren  of 
results  ;  but  if  only  one  word  in  a  hundred 
falls  in  the  right  soil,  if  only  one  effort  in  a 
hundred  touches  the  right  soul,  the  hundred- 
fold fruitage  brings  with  it  ample  compensa- 
114 


;f8ornroff0  in  tfce  College  C&apcl 

tion.  Thus  he  strides  cheerfully  over  the 
fields  of  life  with  the  broad  swing  of  an  un- 
thrifty mind,  expecting  that  much  of  his  seed 
will  fall  among  the  thorns  and  rocks,  but  with 
faith  that  the  harvest  —  even  if  he  is  not  him- 
self permitted  to  reap  it  —  is  yet  made  safe 
through  his  fidelity  to  that  prodigal  Providence 
which  miraculously  multiplies  the  little  he  can 
do,  and  makes  it  bear  fruit,  sometimes  a  hun- 
dredfold. 

"5 


;fftonun£0  in  tfcc  Colics?  Cfjapcl 

XLVI 

THE  HARD  LIFE 
Matthew  xiii.  1-9. 

JET  us  look  still  further  at  this  parable 
of  the  sower.  There  are  described  in 
it  various  kinds  of  lives  on  which 
God's  influences  fall,  and  fall  in  vain.  The 
first  of  these  is  the  hard  life,  —  hard,  like  a 
road,  so  that  the  seed  lies  there  as  if  fallen 
on  a  pavement,  and  gets  no  root,  and  the 
pigeons  come  and  pick  it  up.  We  usually 
think  of  the  hard  life  as  if  it  were  a  life  of  sin. 
We  speak  of  a  hardened  sinner,  of  a  hard 
man,  as  of  persons  whom  good  influences  can- 
not penetrate.  But  the  hard  soil  of  the  para- 
ble is  not  that  of  sin.  It  is  that  of  a  road- 
way, hardened  simply  by  the  passing  to  and 
fro.  It  is  the  hardening  effect  of  habit. 
Sometimes,  the  passage  says,  your  life  gets  so 
worn  by  the  coming  and  going  of  your  daily 
routine,  that  you  become  impenetrable  to  the 
subtle  suggestions  of  God,  as  if  your  life  were 
paved.  Some  people  are  thus  hardened  even 
to  good.  They  lose  capacity  for  impressions. 
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in  tljc  College 

Some  people  are  even  gospel-hardened.  They 
have  heard  so  much  talk  about  religion  that 
it  runs  off  the  pavement  of  their  lives  into 
the  gutter.  Thus  the  first  demand  of  the 
sower  is  for  receptivity,  for  openness  of  mind, 
for  responsiveness.  Give  God  a  chance,  says 
the  parable.  His  seed  gets  no  fair  opportu- 
nity in  a  life  which  is  like  a  trafficking  high- 
road. Keep  the  soil  of  life  soft,  its  sympa- 
thy tender,  its  imagination  free,  or  else  you 
lose  the  elementary  quality  of  receptiveness, 
and  all  the  influences  of  God  may  be  scattered 
over  you  in  vain. 

117 


»n  *& 

XLVII 

THE  THIN    LIFE 
Matthew  xiii.  1-9. 

|HE  first  thing  which  hinders  God's 
seed  from  taking  root  is,  as  we  have 
seen,  hardness,  —  the  life  which  is 
trodden  down  like  a  road ;  an  impenetrability 
of  nature,  which  is  not  a  trait  of  sinners  only, 
but  of  many  privileged  souls.  The  second 
sort  of  unfruitful  soil  is  just  the  opposite  of 
this.  It  is  not  the  unreceptive,  but  the  im- 
pulsively receptive  life.  It  is  not  too  hard, 
or  too  soft,  but  it  is  too  thin.  It  is  a  super- 
ficial soil  which  has  no  depth  of  earth,  and  so 
with  joy  it  receives  the  word  ;  but  the  seed  has 
no  depth  of  earth  and  quickly  withers  away. 
This  sort  of  soil  receives  quickly  and  as 
quickly  lets  go.  It  is  like  that  unstable  man 
of  whom  St.  James  writes  and  who  is  like  the 
wave  of  the  sea,  driven  with  the  wind  and 
tossed.  We  see  the  wave  come  flashing  up 
out  of  the  general  level,  catching  the  sun- 
shine as  it  leaps  and  crowned  with  its  spray, 
and  then  we  look  again  for  it,  and  where  is 
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in  tbc  Collrffe  Chapel 

it  ?    It  has  sunk  again  into  the  undistinguish- 
able  level  of  the  sea. 

Thus  the  parable  turns  to  this  instability 
and  says :  "  It  is  bad  to  be  hard,  but  it  is 
bad  also  to  be  thin."  When  tribulation  or 
persecution  arises,  something  more  than  im- 
pulsiveness is  needed  to  give  a  root  to  life. 
How  strongly  and  serenely  Newman  writes 
of  this  :  — 

"  Prune  thou  thy  words,  the  thoughts  control 
That  o'er  thee  swell  and  throng ; 
They  will  condense  within  thy  soul 
And  turn  to  purpose  strong. 
But  he  who  lets  his  feelings  run 
In  soft  luxurious  flow, 
Faints  when  hard  service  must  be  done, 
And  shrinks  at  every  blow." 


jftorning*  in  tljc  Coilcp 

XLVIII 

THE  CROWDED  LIFE 
Matthew  xiii.  1-9. 

>N  the  parable  of  the  sower  the  third 
kind  of  soil  is  one  which  is  very  com- 
mon in  modern  life.  The  first  soil 
was  too  hard,  and  the  second  too  thin,  and 
now  the  third  is  too  full.  It  is  overgrown  and 
preoccupied.  Other  things  choke  the  seed. 
There  is  not  room  for  the  harvest.  The  in- 
fluences of  God  are  simply  crowded  out. 
And  of  what  is  life  thus  so  full  ?  Of  two 
things,  answers  the  parable.  For  some  it 
is  full  of  the  cares  of  this  world,  and  for 
some  it  is  full  of  the  deceitfulness  of  riches. 
Care  is  the  weed  that  chokes  plain  people, 
and  money  is  the  weed  that  chokes  rich  peo- 
ple. Sometimes  a  poor  man  wonders  how  a 
rich  man  feels.  Well,  he  feels  about  his 
money  just  as  a  poor  man  does  about  his 
cares.  His  wealth  preoccupies  him.  It  is  a 
great  responsibility.  It  takes  a  great  deal 
of  time.  It  crowds  out  many  things  he 
would  like  to  do.  The  poor  man  says  that 

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money  would  free  him  from  care,  but  the  rich 
man  finds  that  money  itself  increases  care. 
Thus  they  are  both  choked  by  lack  of  leisure, 
one  by  the  demands  of  routine,  and  one  by 
the  burdens  of  responsibility.  And  this  para- 
ble says  to  both  these  types  of  life :  "  Keep 
room  for  God."  It  comes  to  the  scholar  and 
says  :  "  In  this  busy  place  reserve  time  to 
think  and  feel ;  do  not  let  your  cares  choke 
your  soul."  And  then  it  goes  out  to  the  great 
scrambling,  money-getting  world,  and  sees 
many  a  man  hard  at  work  in  what  he  calls  his 
field,  watching  for  things  grow  in  his  life,  and 
finding  some  day  that  he  has  been  deceived  in 
his  crop.  He  thought  it  was  to  come  up  grain 
and  it  turns  out  to  be  weeds.  He  sowed 
money  and  expected  a  harvest  of  peace  ;  and 
behold  !  he  only  reaps  more  money.  That  is 
the  deceitfulness  of  riches. 

121 


fftormngg  in  tfcc  College 

XLIX 
THE  PATIENCE  OF  NATURE 

Matthew  xiii.  ;  Mark  iv.  27. 


parable  of  the  sower,  which  begins 
with  its  solemn  warnings  against  the 
hard  life,  the  thin  life,  and  the 
crowded  life,  ends  with  a  note  of  wholesome 
hope.  Who  are  they  who  bring  forth  fruit  in 
abundance  ?  They  are,  the  parable  says,  not 
great  and  exceptional  people.  The  conditions 
are  such  as  any  life  can  fulfil.  It  is  an  honest 
and  good  heart  which  Rears  the  word  and 
keeps  it  and  is  fruitful.  Nothing  but  sincerity 
and  receptivity  is  demanded.  A  plain  soil  is 
productive  enough.  God  only  needs  a  fair 
chance.  He  only  asks  that  life  shall  not  be 
too  hard,  or  too  thin,  or  too  crowded. 

This  is  a  saying  of  great  comfort  to  plain 
people.  And  yet,  even  for  these,  one  last 
demand  is  added,  —  the  demand  for  patience. 
If  fruit  is  to  be  brought  forth  it  must  be 
"with  patience."  The  autumn  comes,  but 
not  all  at  once.  Jesus  is  always  recalling  to 
us  the  gradualness  of  nature  ;  first  the  blade, 
122 


in  tfcr  CoIIrffe  Cfcapcl 

then  the  ear,  then  the  full  corn.  Nothing  in 
nature  is  in  a  hurry.  It  is  not  a  movement 
of  catastrophes,  it  is  a  movement  of  evolution. 
And  so  the  last  word  of  the  parable  is  J:o  the 
impetuous.  What  a  hurry  we  are  in  for  our 
results.  We  look  about  us  among  the  social 
agitations  of  the  day  and  demand  a  panacea  ; 
but  God  is  not  in  a  hurry.  Delay,  uncertainty, 
doubt,  are  a  part  of  Christian  experience. 
It  brings  forth  its  fruit  with  patience.  It  is 
like  these  lingering  days  of  spring,  when  one 
can  discern  no  intimation  of  the  quickening 
life ;  and  yet  one  knows  that  through  the 
brown  branches  the  sap  is  running,  and  slowly 
with  hesitating  advance  the  world  is  moving 
to  the  miracle  of  the  spring. 
«3 


in  tljc  CoIIcp  Cfjapcl 

L 

THE  DISTRIBUTION  OF  TALENTS 
Matthew  xxv.  14-30. 

>HE  parable  of  the  talents  takes  up  the 
side  of  life  which  is  not  emphasized 
in  the  parable  of  the  sower.  In  the 
story  of  the  sower  God  is  doing  the  work  and 
man  is  receptive  of  his  influence.  In  the 
story  of  the  talents  God  is  a  master  who 
leaves  his  servants  to  do  his  work,  and  the 
parable  is  one  of  activity.  These  men  are 
responsible  agents.  Life  is  a  trust.  That  is 
the  natural  teaching  of  the  parable.  All  these 
men  are  accountable ;  there  has  been  given 
to  them  that  which  is  not  their  own,  a  trust 
from  God,  to  be  used  in  his  service.  But 
then  enters  the  extraordinary  teaching  of  this 
parable  as  to  the  fact  of  diversity.  We  talk 
of  men  as  created  free  and  equal.  The  cry 
of  the  time  is  for  equality  of  condition,  for 
leveling  down  the  rich,  and  leveling  up  the 
poor ;  for  paying  the  genius  and  the  hod-carrier 
alike ;  time  for  time,  and  man  for  man.  But 
this  parable  stands  for  no  such  definition  of 
124 


^Hominies  in  tljc  College  Chapel 

equality.  It  recognizes  diversity.  Some  have 
many  talents  and  some  have  few.  To  each 
is  given  "according  to  his  several  ability." 
Diversity  of  condition  is  accepted  as  a  natural 
feature  of  human  life,  just  as  the  hills  and 
valleys  make  up  the  landscape.  The  parable 
does  not  make  of  life  a  prairie. 

Where  then,  in  this  diversified  life,  is  jus- 
tice, the  social  justice  which  men  in  our  time 
so  eagerly  and  so  reasonably  claim  ?  There 
is  no  justice,  answers  the  parable,  if  the  end 
of  life  is  to  be  found  in  getting  the  prizes  of 
this  world  ;  for  some  are  sure  to  get  more 
than  others.  The  justice  of  this  diversity  is 
found  only  in  its  relation  to  God.  It  is  in 
the  proportional  responsibility  of  these  holders 
of  different  gifts.  Of  those  to  whom  much 
has  been  entrusted  much  will  be  required ;  of 
those  who  are  slightly  gifted  the  judgment 
will  be  according  to  the  gift.  There  is  no 
absolute  standard.  The  judgment  is  propor- 
tional. One  man  may  accomplish  less  than 
another,  and  yet  be  more  highly  rewarded, 
for  he  may  do  the  less  conspicuous  duty  laid 
on  him  better  than  the  man  with  the  larger 
trust  does  his.  The  parable  humbles  the 
privileged  and  encourages  the  disheartened. 
125 


i'Harntnp  in  tfce  College 

There  is  no  distinction  of  reward  between  the 
five-talent  man  and  the  two-talent  man.  Each 
has  done  his  own  duty  with  his  own  gifts,  and 
to  each  precisely  the  same  language  of  com- 
mendation is  addressed.  They  have  had 
proportional  responsibility,  and  they  have 
identical  reward.  Both  have  been  faithful, 
and  both  enter  into  the  same  joy  of  their  Lord. 
126 


in  tbc  Collrjc  Cljapcl 

LI 

THE  LAW  OF  INCREASING  RETURNS 
Matthew  xxv.  14-30. 


parable  of  the  talents  adds  to  its 
doctrine  of  responsibility  a  second 
teaching.  It  is  its  doctrine  of  in- 
terest ;  the  return  to  be  looked  for  from  in- 
vestment in  the  spiritual  life.  The  economists 
have  a  law  which  they  call  the  law  of  diminish- 
ing returns  ;  but  Jesus  calls  attention  to  the 
converse  of  that  principle,  —  the  law  of  in- 
creasing and  accelerated  returns.  We  see 
this  principle  on  a  great  scale  in  the  world  of 
money.  Money  has  a  self  -propagating  quality. 
It  breeds  money.  If  you  should  ask  a  very 
rich  man  how  he  accumulated  his  fortune  he 
would  tell  you  that  the  first  savings  involved 
great  thrift  and  wisdom  or  great  good  luck, 
but  that  after  a  while  his  wealth  flowed  in 
upon  him  almost  in  spite  of  himself.  He 
began  to  get  money,  and  the  more  he  got  the 
more  easily  he  got  more.  Now  this  law,  says 
Jesus,  which  is  so  obvious  in  the  business 
world,  is  true  in  a  much  deeper  way  of  the 
127 


in  tbc  College 

spiritual  life.  Knowledge,  power,  faith,  all 
grow  by  investment.  Use  of  the  little  makes 
it  much  ;  hoarding  what  you  have  leaves  it 
unfruitful.  Do  you  want  to  know  more? 
Well,  put  what  you  now  know  to  use.  Invest 
it,  and  as  you  seem  to  spend  it,  it  increases, 
and  you  have  found  the  way  to  the  riches  of 
wisdom.  Do  you  want  faith  ?  Well,  use 
what  faith  you  have.  Try  the  working  hy- 
pothesis of  living  by  faith.  Our  ancestors  in 
New  England  trading  used  to  send  out  on 
their  ships  what  they  called  a  "venture." 
They  took  the  risks  of  business.  There  is  a 
similar  venture  of  faith,  which  says  :  "  Lord, 
I  believe,  help  thou  mine  unbelief."  He 
who  sends  the  venture  of  his  faith  over  the 
ocean  of  his  life  may  look  for  a  rich  cargo 
in  return.  To  the  faithful  in  the  few  things 
the  many  things  are  revealed.  That  is  the 
law  of  increasing  returns. 
128 


iflormncjfl  in  tbc  College  Chapel 

LI  I 

THE  CHRISTIAN   DOCTRINE  OF 
WEALTH 

Matthew  xxv.  14-30. 

the  parable  of  the  talents  the  use  of 
money  is  of  course  only  an  illustration 
of  spiritual  truth.  Yet  the  story  has 
its  obvious  lessons  about  the  uses  of  money 
itself.  The  five-talent  man  is  the  rich  man ; 
and  his  way  of  service  makes  the  Christian 
doctrine  of  wealth.  And,  first  of  all,  the 
parable  evidently  permits  wealth  to  exist.  It 
does  not  prohibit  accumulation.  Jesus  is  not 
a  social  leveler.  His  words  are  full  of  ten- 
derness to  the  poor,  but  when  a  certain  rich 
young  man  came  to  him,  Jesus  loved  him 
also ;  and  when  one  man  asked  him,  saying : 
"  Master,  speak  to  my  brother  that  he  divide 
the  inheritance  with  me,"  Jesus  disclaimed 
the  office  of  a  social  agitator,  saying  :  "  Man, 
who  made  me  a  judge  or  a  divider  over  you." 
Thus  Jesus  cannot  be  claimed  for  any  pet 
scheme  which  one  may  have  of  the  distribu- 
tion of  wealth.  But  let  not  the  Christian 
129 


in  tjje  College 

think  that  on  this  account  the  Christian  theory 
of  wealth  is  less  sweeping  or  radical  than 
some  modern  programme.  The  fact  is  that  it 
asks  more  of  a  man,  be  he  rich  or  poor,  than 
any  modern  agitator  dares  to  propose.  For 
it  demands  not  a  part  of  one's  possessions  as 
the  property  of  others,  but  the  whole  of  them. 
The  Christian  holds  all  his  talents  as  a  trust. 
There  is  in  the  Christian  belief  no  absolute 
ownership  of  property.  A  man  has  no  justi- 
fication hi  saying :  "  May  I  not  do  what  I  will 
with  mine  own  ? "  He  does  not  own  his 
wealth  ;  he  owes  it.  The  Christian  principle 
does  not  divide  the  rich  from  the  poor ;  it  di- 
vides the  faithful  use  of  whatever  one  has 
from  its  unfaithful  use.  Wealth  is  a  fund  of 
five  talents  of  which  one  is  the  trusted  agent ; 
and  to  some  five-talent  men  who  have  been 
faithful  in  their  grave  responsibilities,  the 
word  of  Jesus  would  be  given  to-day  as  gladly 
as  to  any  poor  man  :  "  Well  done,  faithful  ser- 
vant, enter  into  the  joy  of  thy  Lord." 
130 


jftormngEC  in  tljc  College  Cbapcl 

LIII 

THE  AVERAGE  MAN1 
Matthciv  xxv.  22. 

the  parable  of  the  talents  the  man 
that  gets  least  general  attention  is 
the  man  that  stands  in  the  middle. 
The  five-talent  man  gets  distinction,  and  the 
one-talent  man  gets  rebuke,  but  the  two- 
talent  man,  the  man  with  ordinary  gifts  and 
ordinary  returns  from  them,  seems  to  be 
an  unexciting  character.  And  yet  this  is  the 
man  of  the  majority,  the  average  man,  the 
man  most  like  ourselves,  —  not  very  bad,  and 
not  very  remarkable.  As  has  been  said : 
"God  must  have  a  special  fondness  for 
average  people,  for  He  has  made  so  many  of 
them."  Now,  the  average  man  stands  in 
special  need  of  encouragement.  One  of  the 
most  serious  moments  of  life  is  when  a  man 
discovers  that  he  is  this  sort  of  man.  It  comes 
over  most  of  us  some  day  that  we  are  not  going 

1  Read  also,  on  this  and  the  following  subject,  the  kindling 
sermons  of  Phillips  Brooks  :  "  The  Man  with  Two  Talents,"  voL 
hr  p.  192 ;  "The  Man  with  One  Talent,"  voL  I  p.  138. 


^Horning;s  in  tljr  College  Chapel 

to  do  anything  extraordinary ;  that  we  are 
never  likely  to  shine  ;  that  we  are  simply  peo- 
ple of  the  crowd.  Nothing  seems  to  take  the 
ambition  and  enthusiasm  out  of  one  more  than 
this  recognition  of  oneself  as  an  average  man. 
Then  comes  Jesus  with  his  word  of  courage. 
"  Your  work,"  he  says,  "is  just  as  significant, 
and  rewarded  with  precisely  the  same  commen- 
dation as  the  work  of  the  five-talent  man." 
The  same  "Well  done  "  is  spoken  to  both,  and 
it  may  be  that  the  more  heroic  qualities  are 
in  the  man  with  fewer  gifts.  To  make  great 
gifts  effective  may  be  easy,  but  to  take  com- 
mon gifts  and  make  them  yield  their  best 
returns  —  that  is  what  helps  us  all.  There  is 
not  a  more  inspiring  sight  in  life  than  to  see 
a  man  start  with  ordinary  capacity  and  to 
see  his  power  grow  out  of  his  consecration. 
Looking  back  on  life  from  middle  age,  that 
would  be  the  story  one  would  tell  of  many  a 
success.  One  sees  five-talent  men  fail  and 
two-talent  men  take  their  place  ;  average  gifts 
persistently  used  yielding  rich  returns,  and 
the  promise  of  usefulness  lying,  not  in  abun- 
dant endowments  of  nature,  but  in  the  using 
to  the  utmost  what  moderate  capacities  one 
has  soberly  accepted  as  trusts  from  God 
132 


in  tbe  College  Chapel 

LIV 

THE  OVERCOMING  OF  INSIGNIFICANCE 
Matthew  xxv.  24. 


parable  of  the  talents  was  spe- 
cially given  to  teach  Christians  not 
to  be  discouraged  because  Christ's 
kingdom  was  delayed.  The  one-talent  man 
is  its  real  object,  and  the  lessons  of  larger  en- 
dowment are  only  by  the  way.  The  one- 
talent  man  is  not  the  bad  man,  for  to  him  also 
God  gives  a  trust,  but  this  man  is  given  so 
little  to  do  that  he  thinks  it  not  worth  while 
to  do  anything.  He  is  not  the  many-gifted 
five-talent  man,  or  even  the  average  two-talent 
man,  but  he  is  simply  the  man  of  no  account. 
The  risk  of  the  five-talent  man  is  his  conceit  ; 
the  risk  of  the  two-talent  man  is  his  envy  ;  the 
risk  of  the  one-talent  man  is  his  hopelessness. 
Why  should  this  insignificant  bubble  on  the 
great  stream  of  life  inflate  itself  with  self- 
importance  ?  Why  should  it  not  just  drift 
along  with  the  current  and  be  lost  in  the  first 
rapids  of  the  stream  ?  Now  Christ's  first  ap- 
peal to  this  sense  of  insignificance  is  this,  — 


in  t&e  Collie 

that  in  the  sight  of  God  there  is  no  such 
thing  as  an  insignificant  life.  Taken  by  itself, 
looked  at  in  its  own  independent  personality, 
many  a  life  is  insignificant  enough.  But  when 
we  look  at  life  religiously  and  recognize  that 
it  is  a  trusted  agent  of  God,  then  the  doctrine 
of  the  trust  redeems  it  from  insignificance. 
You  have  not  much,  but  what  you  have  is 
essential  to  the  whole.  The  lighthouse- 
keeper  on  his  rock  sits  in  his  solitude  and 
watches  his  little  flame.  Why  does  he  not  let 
it  die  away  as  other  lights  in  the  distance  die 
when  the  night  comes  on  ?  Because  it  is  not 
his  light.  He  is  its  keeper,  not  its  owner. 
The  great  Power  that  watches  that  stormy 
coast  has  set  him  there,  and  he  must  be  true. 
The  insignificant  service  becomes  full  of  dig- 
nity and  importance  when  it  is  accepted  as  a 
post  of  honor  and  trust.  So  the  unimportant 
life  gets  its  significance  not  by  its  own  dimen- 
sions, but  by  its  place  in  God's  great  order,  and 
the  most  wretched  moment  of  one's  life  must 
be  when  he  discovers  that  he  has  been  trusted 
by  God  to  do  even  a  little  part  and  has  thrown 
his  chance  away.  The  one-talent  man  thought 
his  trust  not  worth  investing,  and  behold,  the 
account  of  it  was  called  for  with  the  rest.  He 
134 


in  tbc  College  C&apcl 

had  in  his  hands  a  trust  from  God  and  had 
wasted  it,  and  there  was  nothing  left  for  him 
but  the  weeping  of  regret  and  the  gnashing  of 
teeth  of  indignant  self-reproach. 


iHotnmp  in  tljc  College 

LV 

CAPACITY  EXTIRPATED  BY  DISUSE 
Matthew  xxv.  29. 

|HE  parable  of  the  talents  begins  with 
its  splendid  encouragement  to  those 
who  have  done  their  best,  but  it  ends 
with  a  solemn  warning  and  with  the  stern  an- 
nouncement of  a  universal  law.  It  is  this,  — 
that  from  him  who  does  not  use  his  powers 
there  is  taken  away  even  the  power  that  he 
has.  The  gift  is  lost  by  the  lack  of  exercise, 
or  as  Horace  Bushnell  stated  the  principle, 
the  "  capacity  is  extirpated  by  disuse." 

This  principle  has  manifold  illustrations. 
The  hand  or  muscle  disused  withers  in  power. 
The  fishes  of  the  Mammoth  Cave,  having  no 
use  for  their  eyes,  lose  them.  Mr.  Darwin  in 
an  impressive  passage  of  his  biography  testi- 
fies that  he  began  life  with  a  taste  for  poetry 
and  music,  but  that  by  disuse  this  aesthetic 
taste  grew  atrophied  so  that  at  last  he  did  not 
care  to  read  a  poem  or  to  hear  a  musical  note. 
So  it  is,  says  Jesus,  with  spiritual  insight  and 
power.  Sometimes  we  see  a  man  of  intellec- 
136 


in  t&c  £ollrg;c 

tual  gifts  lose  his  grasp  on  spiritual  realities, 
and  we  ask  :  "  How  is  it  that  so  learned  a  man 
can  find  little  in  these  things  ?  Does  not  he 
testify  that  these  things  are  illusions  ? "  Not 
at  all.  It  is  simply  that  he  has  not  kept  his 
life  trained  on  that  side.  His  capacity  has 
been  extirpated  by  disuse.  He  may  know 
much  of  science  or  language,  but  he  has  lost 
his  ideals.  We  hear  a  young  man  sometimes 
say  that  he  has  grown  soft  by  lack  of  exer- 
cise. Well,  if  you  live  a  few  years  you  will 
see  people  who  have  grown  soft  in  soul,  and 
you  will  see  some  great  blow  of  fat«  smite 
them  and  crush  them  because  their  spiritual 
muscle  is  flabby  and  weak.  Ignatius  Loyola 
laid  down  for  his  followers  certain  methods  of 
prayer  which  he  called  "Spiritual  Exercises." 
So  in  one  sense  they  were.  They  kept  souls 
in  training.  The  exercise  of  the  religious 
nature  is  the  gymnastics  of  the  soul,  and  the 
disuse  of  the  religious  nature  extirpates  its 
capacity.  That  is  the  solemn  ending  of  the 
parable  of  the  talents.  From  him  who  does 
not  use  his  power  there  is  taken  away  even 
the  power  that  he  hath. 
137 


in  tl;c  College  Cljapd 

LVI 
THE  PARABLE  OF  THE  VACUUM 

Matthew  xii.  38-45. 

is  easy  to  see  where  the  emphasis  of 
^s  parable  lies.  It  is  on  the  impos- 
sible  emptiness  of  this  man's  house. 
A  man  casts  out  the  devil  of  his  life  and 
turns  the  key  on  his  empty  soul  and  feels 
safe.  But  he  cannot  thus  find  safety.  That 
is  not  the  way  to  deal  with  evil  spirits.  Back 
they  come,  crowding  into  his  life  through 
the  windows  if  not  through  the  doors,  and  the 
last  state  of  that  man  is  worse  than  the  first. 
If  the  parable  had  been  told  in  modern  times 
it  might  have  been  called  the  parable  of  the 
vacuum.  A  man's  life  is  a  space  which  re- 
fuses to  be  empty.  If  it  is  not  tenanted  by 
good  the  evil  knocks  and  enters  it.  There  is 
no  such  thing  as  an  unoccupied  life.  Nature 
abhors  a  vacuum. 

Here  is  one  of  the  most  common  mistakes 

of  human  experience.     A  man  often  thinks 

that  the  less  occupied  his  life  is  the  safer  it 

is.     He  casts  out  his  passions,  he  denies  his 

138 


in  t&c  Collffff  Chapel 

desires,  he  abandons  his  ambitions,  and  so 
seeks  safety.  But  his  life  is  attacked  by  new 
perils.  The  lusts  and  conceits  of  life  cannot 
be  barred  out  of  life ;  they  must  be  crowded 
out.  The  old  passion  must  be  supplanted  by 
a  new  and  better  one.  The  very  same  quali- 
ties which  go  to  make  a  great  sinner  are 
needed  to  make  a  true  saint.  A  man's  soul 
is  not  safe  when  the  vigor  and  force  are 
taken  out  of  it.  It  is  safe  only  when  the 
same  passion  which  once  threatened  ruin  is 
converted  to  generous  service  ;  and  the  same 
physical  life  that  seemed  an  enemy  of  the 
soul  has  become  the  instrument  of  the  soul. 
The  saved  life  is  not  the  empty  life,  but  the 
full  life.  Jesus  comes  not  to  destroy  men's 
natures,  but  to  fill  their  capacities  full  of 
better  aims.  The  only  way  to  overcome  evil 
is  to  have  the  life  preoccupied  by  good. 
139 


in  t&e  College  Chapel 


LVII 

CHRISTIANITY    AND   BUSINESS 
i.  1-12. 


>HIS  is  a  difficult  parable.  There  is  a 
^  quality  of  daring  about  it  which  at 
first  sight  perplexes  many  people. 
It  is  the  story  of  a  steward  who  cheats  his 
master,  and  of  debtors  who  are  in  collusion 
with  the  fraud,  and  of  a  master  praising  his 
servant  even  while  he  punishes  him,  as  though 
he  said  :  "  Well,  at  least  you  are  a  shrewd  and 
clever  fellow."  It  uses,  that  is  to  say,  the  bad 
people  to  teach  a  lesson  to  the  good,  and  one 
might  fancy  that  it  praises  the  bad  people  at 
the  expense  of  the  good.  But  this  is  not  its 
intention.  It  simply  goes  its  way  into  the 
midst  of  a  group  of  people  who  are  cheating 
and  defrauding  each  other  and  says  :  "  Even 
such  people  as  these  have  something  to  teach 
to  the  children  of  light." 

I  once  heard  of  a  father  whose  son  was 

sentenced  to  the  Concord  Reformatory  for 

burglary.     The  father  stood  by  the  bars  of 

the  cell  and  heard  the  boy's  story,  and  then 

140 


jfRorntnj*  in  tlje  College 

with  tears  in  his  eyes  he  turned  to  the  jailer 
and  said  :  "  It  is  a  terrible  sorrow  to  have 
one's  boy  thus  disgraced,  but" — and  his  face 
brightened  a  little  —  "  after  all  he  was  mon- 
strous plucky."  So  Jesus,  out  of  the  heart  of 
this  petty  group  of  persons  snatches  a  lesson 
for  Christians.  It  is  this  :  "  Why  should  not 
the  children  of  light  be  as  sagacious  as  these 
rascals  were  ?  Why  should  pious  people  be 
so  stupid?"  Jesus  looks  on  to  the  needs 
that  must  occur  in  his  religion  for  sagacity, 
prudence,  discretion,  and  the  perils  that  will 
come  to  it  from  sentimentalism,  mysticism, 
silliness,  and  he  asks :  "  Why  is  it  that  the 
children  of  this  world  are  so  much  shrewder 
than  the  children  of  light  ?  " 

How  closely  his  question  comes  to  the 
needs  of  our  own  time !  Why  is  it  that  in 
our  moral  agitations  and  reforms  the  bad  peo- 
ple seem  so  much  cleverer  than  the  good 
ones ;  that  political  self-seeking  gets  the  bet- 
ter of  unselfish  statesmanship ;  that  the 
liquor  dealers  defeat  the  temperance  people  ; 
that  competition  in  business  is  so  often  clev- 
erer than  cooperation  in  business  ?  What  does 
Christianity  need  to-day  so  much  as  wisdom  ? 
It  has  soft-heartedness,  but  it  lacks  hard- 
Hi 


in  the  College  Cljapcl 

headedness.  It  has  sweetness,  but  it  lacks 
light.  It  has  sentiment,  but  it  needs  sense. 
How  often  a  man  of  affairs  is  tempted  to  feel 
a  certain  contempt  for  the  Church  of  Christ, 
when  he  turns  from  the  intensely  real  issues 
of  his  week-day  world  to  the  abstractness  and 
unreality  of  religious  questions !  How  ficti- 
tious, how  unbusiness-like,  how  preposterous 
in  the  sight  of  God  is  this  internecine  secta- 
rianism and  impotent  sentimentalism  where 
there  might  be  the  triumphant  march  of  one 
army  under  one  flag !  Let  us  learn  the  lesson 
which  even  the  grasping,  unscrupulous  world 
has  to  teach,  —  the  lesson  of  an  absorbed  and 
disciplined  mind  giving  its  entire  sagacity  to 
the  chief  business  of  life. 
142 


in  tljc  College  Cljapcl 

LVIII 

MAKING  FRIENDS  OF   MAMMON 
Zw&rxvi.  i-io. 

JAMMON  means  money,  and  the  pur- 
pose of  this  parable  is  to  teach  Chris- 
tians their  relations  to  that  world  of 
which  Mammon  is  the  centre,  —  the  world  of 
business  interests  and  cares.  Jesus  says  that 
this  world  is  neither  very  good  nor  very  bad. 
It  is  simply  unrighteous.  It  has  no  specific 
moral  quality  about  it.  He  says  further  that 
you  cannot  serve  this  world  of  Mammon  and 
serve  God  also.  You  must  choose.  What 
then  can  you  do  in  your  relation  to  Mammon? 
You  can  do  one  of  three  things.  You  may, 
first,  make  an  enemy  of  Mammon  ;  or  sec- 
ondly, make  a  master  of  Mammon,  or  thirdly, 
make  a  friend  of  Mammon.  Many  people  in 
Christian  history  have  made  an  enemy  of 
Mammon.  They  have  regarded  the  world  of 
business  as  a  godless  world  which  should  be 
shunned.  They  have  run  away  from  it  to  the 
ascetic,  unworldly  life.  That  is  the  spirit  of 
the  whole  monastic  retreat  from  the  battle  of 


in  tfje  College  Cbnpd 

practical  life,  —  a  reaction  full  of  the  beauty 
of  self-denial,  but  still  a  retreat.  The  battle 
of  life  has  to  go  on,  and  the  best  troops 
have  run  away.  On  the  other  hand,  a  great 
many  persons  have  made  a  master  of  Mam- 
mon. They  are  simply  the  slaves  of  money. 
That  is  the  vulgar  materialism  of  the  mod- 
ern world.  But  Jesus  says  that  neither 
of  these  attitudes  towards  Mammon  is  the 
Christian  relation.  The  Christian  is  to  make 
a  friend  of  Mammon ;  to  welcome  it,  and  to 
use  it,  to  discover  the  good  in  it  and  learn  its 
lessons ;  to  mould  it  into  the  higher  uses  of 
life.  Here  is  a  potter  working  in  his  clay. 
It  is  a  coarse  material  which  he  uses  and 
his  hands  grow  soiled  as  he  works ;  but  it  is 
not  for  him  to  reject  it  because  it  is  not 
clean,  but  for  him  to  work  out  through  it  the 
shapes  of  beauty  which  are  possible  within 
the  limits  of  the  clay.  Just  such  a  material 
is  the  modern  world.  It  is  not  very  clean 
and  not  very  beautiful ;  but  the  problem  of 
life  is  to  mould  out  of  its  uncleanness  the 
shapes  of  beauty  which  it  contains.  To  run 
away  from  life  -—  that  is  easy  enough ;  to 
yield  to  its  evil  — •-  that  is  still  easier  ;  but  to 
be  in  the  world  and  to  mould  it  —  that  is  the 
144 


in  tbc  Collrst 

real  problem  of  the  Christian  life.  And  here 
is  the  real  test  of  Christian  character.  The 
saints  of  the  past  have  been  for  the  most  part 
men  who  fled  from  the  world,  but  the  saint 
of  to-day  is  the  man  who  can  use  the  world. 
He  is  the  man  of  business  who  amid  looseness 
of  standards  keeps  himself  clean.  He  is  the 
youth  in  college  who  without  the  least  re- 
treat from  its  influences  moulds  them  to  good. 
He  is  not  the  runaway  from  the  world  of 
Mammon,  nor  yet  its  slave ;  he  makes  a 
friend  of  Mammon  for  the  service  of  God. 
HS 


in  tljc  Collcffc 

LIX 
COMING  TO  ONE'S   SELF 

Luke  xv.  17. 


he  came  to  himself  he  said  :  I 
will  arise  and  go  to  my  father." 
This  is  one  of  those  gospel  sen- 
tences which  contains  within  itself  a  whole 
system  of  theology,  a  doctrine  of  man  and  of 
God  and  of  the  relation  of  the  one  to  the 
other.  He  came  to  himself.  It  was  not  then 
himself  that  had  gone  away  into  a  far  coun- 
try. It  was  an  unreal,  fictitious  self.  He 
had  been  insane,  beside  himself,  and  now,  as 
his  better  life  starts  up  hi  him,  he  comes  to 
himself.  As  his  father  said  of  him,  he  had 
been  dead  and  was  alive  again.  The  renewal 
of  the  good  self  in  him  was  the  resurrection 
of  his  true  personality. 

How  deep  that  goes  into  one's  doctrine  of 
human  nature  !  Never  believe  that  the  sin- 
ning self  is  the  true  self.  Your  real  person- 
ality is  the  potential  good  in  you.  The 
moment  that  good  springs  into  life  you  have 
a  right  to  say:  "Now  I  know  what  I  was 
146 


made  for.  I  have  come  to  life.  I  have  dis- 
covered myself."  And  then  there  is  the 
religious  aspect  of  this  same  self-discovery. 
No  sooner  does  this  boy  come  to  himself 
than  he  says,  "  I  will  arise  and  go  to  my 
father."  The  religious  need  follows  at  once 
from  the  self-awakening.  Nay,  was  not  the 
religious  need  the  source  of  the  self-awaken- 
ing ?  What  was  it  that  brought  him  to  him- 
self but  just  the  homesickness  of  the  child 
for  his  father's  house  ?  His  self-discovery 
was  but  the  answer  of  his  soul  to  the  contin- 
uous love  of  God.  Before  he  ever  came  to 
himself  the  father  was  waiting  for  him.  An- 
tecedent to  the  ethical  return  was  the  religious 
quickening.  That  is  the  relation  of  religion 
to  conduct.  You  make  your  resolutions,  but 
it  is  God  that  prompts  them.  Your  self- 
discovery  is  the  drawing  of  the  Father.  Your 
true  self  is  his  son.  How  natural  it  all  is,  — 
an  infinite  law  of  love  at  the  heart  of  the 
universe  —  that  is  the  centre  of  theology  ;  a 
world  that  permits  moral  alienation  through 
the  free  will  of  man,  —  that  is  the  problem  of 
philosophy  ;  he  came  to  himself, —  that  is  the 
heart  of  ethics  ;  I  will  go  to  my  Father,  — 
that  is  the  soul  of  religion. 
i47 


in  tftc  Collfffc  Chapel 

LX 

POPULARITY 
.  37-43  ;  Matthew  xxi.  17-23. 

(PASSION  WEEK —  MONDAY) 
[HE  ministry  of  Jesus  is  as  a  whole 
not  easy  to  arrange  in  any  fixed  chro- 
nology. The  order  of  events  seems 
often  to  vary  in  the  different  gospels,  and  some- 
times these  unstudied  narratives  seem  in  posi- 
tive conflict.  But  as  the  story  draws  to  its 
close  the  paths  of  narrative  begin  to  converge, 
and  as  we  approach  the  last  days  and  enter 
on  the  last  week  the  incidents  of  each  day 
become  perfectly  distinct,  and  one  can  trace 
the  life  of  Jesus  as  it  moves  on  from  his 
triumph  of  Palm  Sunday  to  his  tragedy  of  the 
cross.  As  we  enter  then  to-day  on  the  anni- 
versary of  the  last  week  of  the  life  of  Jesus, 
the  week  before  Easter  Sunday,  let  us  glance 
at  some  of  the  hurrying  events.  And  for  to- 
day consider  the  contrast  which  presents  itself 
between  the  entrance  of  Jesus  at  Jerusalem 
on  Sunday  morning,  and  his  return  to  the 
city  by  the  same  road  on  this  Monday  morn- 
148 


in  the  College 

ing  of  his  last  week.  Yesterday  he  came 
over  the  brow  of  the  Mount  of  Olives,  sur- 
rounded by  an  enthusiastic  throng,  the  centre 
of  their  popularity.  To-day  he  comes  along 
the  same  road,  unattended  and  alone,  the 
crowd  slinking  away  from  him,  his  popular- 
ity gone.  And  how  does  he  bear  himself 
through  these  shiftings  of  opinion  ?  He  sim- 
ply does  not  manifest  any  consciousness  of 
change.  He  is  as  undisturbed  by  neglect  as 
he  was  yesterday  by  success.  On  Sunday, 
while  the  people  were  spreading  their 
branches  beneath  his  feet,  he  looked  across 
the  valley  to  the  city  and  wept  as  he  looked ; 
and  to-day,  coming  with  no  popular  applause, 
he  enters  straight  into  the  city  and  asserts 
to  its  leaders  his  supreme  authority.  In  the 
midst  of  popularity  he  seems  saddened,  and 
in  the  midst  of  neglect  he  seems  stirred  to  a 
defiant  boldness.  In  short,  he  is  unscathed 
alike  by  what  seems  to  be  success  and  what 
seems  to  be  failure.  He  goes  his  way  through 
it  all  with  his  eye  on  that  great  end  which 
gives  him  peace  amid  the  throng,  and  cour- 
age amid  the  solitude. 

That  is  the   only  way  in   which   one  can 
maintain  himself  among  the  shifting  currents 
149 


in  t&e  College  C&apel 

of  popularity.  It  comes  and  goes  like  a  tide. 
The  man  who  tries  to  lean  on  it  is  simply 
swept  by  the  rising  tide  into  self-conceit,  and 
then  stranded  by  the  ebb  of  that  same  tide  on 
the  flats  of  despair.  Popularity  is  as  fickle  as 
the  April  winds,  and  one  can  trust  it  as  little 
as  he  dare  trust  the  New  England  climate. 
It  is  only  he  who  can  be  wholly  self -controlled 
amid  the  triumphs  of  his  Palm  Sunday  who 
can  move  on  with  equal  self-control  to  the 
bearing  of  the  cross  with  which  that  same 
week  may  close. 

150 


in  tjjr  College  Cbapcl 


LXI 

TWO  QUESTIONS  ABOUT  CHRIS- 
TIANITY 

Luke  xx.  19-38. 

(PASSION  WEEK  —  TUESDAY) 
>HE  Sunday  of  the  last  week  of  Jesus 
was  all  triumph,  the  Monday  was  all 
neglect,  the  Tuesday  was  all  contro- 
versy. He  returns  once  more  from  Bethany 
to  the  city,  and  he  finds  the  opposition  at  its 
height.  At  once  he  is  set  upon  by  two  kinds 
of  people  and  asked  two  kinds  of  questions  as 
to  his  mission  and  aim.  One  question  was 
political,  or  as  we  now  are  saying  sociological. 
What  did  he  think  about  taxation  ?  What 
was  his  attitude  toward  the  government  ? 
Was  he  encouraging  social  revolt  ?  Was  he 
an  anarchist  or  a  socialist  ?  The  other  ques- 
tion was  theological.  What  did  he  think 
about  the  future  life  ?  How  would  marriage 
be  arranged  in  heaven  ?  Was  his  theology 
orthodox  ?  All  this  must  have  seemed  to 
Jesus  malicious  enough,  but  I  think  that  the 
deepest  impression  he  had  of  such  questions 
151 


;piorning0  in  tfjc  Caliche 

must  have  been  of  their  stupidity.  How  was 
it  possible  that  after  months  of  public  teaching 
any  one  could  suppose  that  such  problems 
were  in  the  line  of  his  intention.  Here  he 
was,  trying  to  bring  spiritual  life  among  his 
people,  —  the  life  of  God  to  the  souls  of  men, 
—  and  here  were  people  still  trying  to  find  in 
him  a  political  schemer  or  a  metaphysical 
theologian. 

Yet  there  are  questions  of  much  this  nature 
still  being  asked  of  Jesus.  Some  honest  per- 
sons are  still  insisting  that  Christ's  religion  is 
a  system  of  theology,  and  some  are  trying  to 
make  of  it  a  course  in  social  science,  and 
neither  of  them  seem  to  notice  that  the  last 
day  of  general  teaching  which  was  permitted 
to  him  on  earth  was  largely  devoted  to  de- 
monstrating that  he  was  neither  a  social 
agitator  nor  a  theological  professor.  Chris- 
tianity is  not  a  scheme  or  arrangement,  social 
or  theological,  like  a  railway  which  men  might 
build  either  to  accelerate  the  business  of  life 
or  to  take  one  straight  to  heaven.  Christian- 
ity provides  that  which  all  such  mechanism 
needs.  It  is  a  power,  like  that  electric  force 
which  makes  the  equipment  of  a  railway  move. 
A  church  is  a  power-house  for  the  develop 
152 


in  tbc  College  Oapd 

ment  and  the  transmission  of  the  power  that 
makes  things  go.  Cut  off  the  power,  and  the 
theological  creeds  and  social  programmes  of 
the  day  stand  there  paralyzed  or  dead.  Com- 
municate to  them  the  dynamic  of  the  Christian 
life,  and  the  power  goes  singing  over  all  the 
wires  of  life  and  sets  its  mechanism  in  motion, 
as  though  it  sang  upon  its  way  :  "  I  am  come 
that  these  may  have  my  life,  and  may  have  it 
abundantly." 


fHorninp  in  tbr  College 

LXII 
AN  UNRECORDED  DAY 

(PASSION  WEEK  —  WEDNESDAY) 
have  traced  from  day  to  day  the  life 
of  Jesus  through  the  earlier  days  of 
its  last  week,  its  triumph  of  Sunday, 
its  solitude  of  Monday,  its  controversies  of 
Tuesday.  On  each  of  these  days  Jesus  has 
come  over  the  hill  from  Bethany  into  the  city, 
and  has  returned  to  the  village  at  night.  And 
now  we  come  to  the  last  day  before  the  Pass- 
over and  the  betrayal ;  the  last  chance  to 
meet  his  enemies  and  to  enforce  his  cause. 
What  then  does  Jesus  do  on  this  last  Wednes- 
day of  his  life  ?  So  far  as  we  know,  he  does 
nothing  at  all.  It  is  a  day  without  record. 
There  is  no  New  Testament  passage  from 
which  I  can  read  about  it.  He  appears  to 
have  stayed  at  Bethany,  perhaps  with  his 
friends,  perhaps  for  a  part  of  the  day  alone. 
His  work  was  done,  and  he  used  this  last  day 
for  quiet  withdrawal. 

What  self-control  and  reserve  are  here ! 
How  would  one  of  us  have  been  inclined  to 
conduct  himself,  if  he  found  himself  with  just 


/Horning^  in  tfcc  College  CJjapcl 

one  more  day  for  active  service  ?  "  One  more 
day,"  he  would  have  said ;  "then  fill  it  with  the 
best  works  and  the  best  words  ;  let  me  stamp 
my  message  on  my  time  ;  let  me  fulfil  the  work 
which  was  given  me  to  do."  But  Jesus  has  no 
such  lust  of  finishing.  He  simply  commits  his 
spirit  to  his  Father,  and  awaits  the  trial  and 
the  cross.  And  perhaps  on  that  unrecorded 
day  his  real  agony  was  met,  and  his  real  cross 
borne.  Perhaps  as  he  went  up  on  that  hill- 
side, which  still  overlooks  the  little  village  of 
Bethany,  and  looked  at  his  past  and  at  his 
future,  the  real  spiritual  conquest  was  at- 
tained ;  for  he  comes  back  again  to  Jerusalem 
on  Thursday  morning,  not  with  the  demeanor 
of  a  martyr  but  with  the  air  of  a  conqueror  ; 
and  when  Pilate  asks  him  if  he  is  a  king  he 
answers  him  :  "  Thou  hast  said  it." 

So  it  is  with  many  a  life.  It  has  its  great 
days,  —  its  Palm  Sundays  of  triumphs,  its 
Good  Fridays  of  cross-bearing,  and  these 
seem  the  epochs  of  its  experience  ;  but  when 
one  searches  for  the  sources  of  its  strength, 
they  lie  —  do  they  not  ?  —  in  some  unrecorded 
day,  as  the  sources  of  an  abundant  river  lie 
hidden  in  some  nook  among  the  hills. 


in  t{jc  College  Cfjapel 


LXIII 
THE  ANSWER  TO   PRAYER 

Luke  xxii.  39-48. 

(PASSION  WEEK  —  THURSDAY) 
Thursday  morning  of  his  last  week 
Jesus  sends  two  of  his  friends  before 
him  into  Jerusalem  to  prepare  the 
Passover  meal,  while  he  does  not  himself  enter 
the  city  until  the  afternoon.  There  he  meets 
his  friends,  and  after  the  supper  he  takes  the 
bread  and  wine  and  with  entire  naturalness 
asks  them,  as  they  eat  and  drink,  to  remem- 
ber him.  Then  he  talks  with  them  and  prays 
with  them,  and  they  go  out  again  on  the  road 
toward  Bethany  ;  and  coming  to  a  little  gar- 
den at  the  foot  of  the  hill  called  the  Mount 
of  Olives  he  bids  his  companions  wait  while 
he  goes,  as  his  custom  was,  to  pray. 

We  hear  much  discussion  about  prayer  and 
its  possibilities,  —  what  we  can  pray  for  and 
what  God  can  do  in  return,  and  what  is  the 
true  answer  to  prayer.  But  what  a  silence 
comes  over  all  such  questionings  when  one 
notices  that  this  prayer  of  Jesus  uttered  thus 
156 


in  t&e  College 

in  this  most  solemn  hour  was  not,  in  the  sense 
of  these  discussions,  answered  by  his  God. 
It  was  the  moment  of  the  supreme  agony  of 
Christ.  The  falseness  of  friends,  the  blindness 
of  his  people,  the  malice  of  their  leaders,  —  all 
these  things  seem  more  than  he  can  bear. 
"  Let  this  cup  pass  from  me,"  he  prays,  and, 
behold,  his  prayer  is  not  accepted,  and  what 
he  asks  is  denied,  and  the  cup  is  to  be  drunk. 
And  yet  in  a  far  deeper  sense  his  prayer  is 
answered.  "Thy  will  be  done,"  he  prays,  — 
not  in  spite  of  me,  or  over  me,  but  through 
me.  Make  me,  my  Father,  the  instrument  of 
thy  will ;  and  so  praying  he  rises  with  abso- 
lute composure  and  kingly  authority,  and  goes 
out  with  his  prayer  answered  to  do  that  will. 

What  should  we  pray  for  ?  Why,  we  should 
pray  for  what  we  most  deeply  want.  There 
is  no  sincerity  in  praying  for  things  which  are 
fictitious  or  abstract  or  mere  theological  bless- 
ings. Open  to  God  the  realities  of  your 
heart  and  seek  the  blessings  which  you  sin- 
cerely desire.  But  in  all  prayers  desire  most 
to  know  the  will  of  God  toward  you,  and  to 
do  it.  Prayer  is  not  offered  to  deflect  God's 
will  to  yours,  but  to  adjust  your  will  to  His. 
When  a  ship's  captain  is  setting  out  on  a  voy- 


fn  tljr  Colfege  Cbapcl 

age  he  first  of  all  adjusts  his  compasses,  cor- 
rects their  divergence,  and  counteracts  the 
influences  which  draw  the  needle  from  the 
pole.  Well,  that  is  prayer.  It  is  the  adjust- 
ment of  the  compass  of  the  soul,  it  is  its 
restoration  from  deflection,  it  is  the  pointing  of 
it  to  the  will  of  God.  And  the  soul  which  thus 
sails  forth  into  the  sea  of  life  finds  itself  — 
not  indeed  freed  from  all  storms  of  the  spirit, 
but  at  least  sure  of  its  direction  through 

them  all 

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in  tbe  College  Chapel 

LXIV 
AN  IMPOSSIBLE  NEUTRALITY 

John  xviii.  28-38. 
(PASSION  DAY  —  FRIDAY) 
H  E  story  of  Friday  in  this  last  week  of 


Jesus  begins  with  this  meeting  with 
the  Roman  governor,  and  certainly 
few  persons  in  history  would  be  more  sur- 
prised than  Pilate  at  the  judgment  of  the  world 
concerning  him.  If  Pilate  felt  sure  of  anything 
it  was  that  he  did  not  commit  himself  in  the 
case  of  Jesus.  He  undertook  to  be  absolutely 
neutral.  See  how  nicely  he  poises  his  judg- 
ment. On  the  one  hand  he  says  :  "  I  find  no 
fault  in  him,"  and  then  on  the  other  hand  he 
says :  "  Take  him  away  and  crucify  him." 
First  he  washes  his  hands  to  show  that  he  is 
innocent  of  the  blood  of  this  just  person,  and 
then  he  delivers  Jesus  to  the  Jews  to  take  him 
away.  It  was  a  fine  balancing  of  a  judicial 
mind,  and  I  suppose  he  withdrew  from  the 
judgment  hall  saying  to  himself  :  "  Whatever 
may  happen  in  this  case,  at  least  I  am  not 
responsible."  But  what  does  history  think 


in  t&e  4Dolleff« 

of  this  judicial  Pilate  ?  It  holds  him  to  be  a 
responsible  agent  in  the  death  of  Jesus.  He 
was  attempting  a  neutrality  which  was  impos- 
sible. The  great  wind  was  blowing  across  the 
threshing  floor  of  the  nation,  and  the  people 
were  separated  into  two  distinct  heaps,  and 
must  be  counted  forever  as  chaff  or  as  wheat. 
He  that  was  not  with  Christ  was  against  him, 
and  Pilate's  place,  even  in  spite  of  himself, 
was  determined  as  among  those  who  brought 
Jesus  to  his  cross  that  afternoon. 

I  was  once  talking  with  a  cultivated  gentle- 
man who  volunteered  to  tell  me  his  attitude 
toward  religion.  He  wished  me  to  under- 
stand that  he  was  in  sympathy  with  the  pur- 
poses and  the  administration  of  worship.  He 
desired  that  it  should  prevail.  He  welcomed 
its  usefulness  in  the  university.  But  as  for 
himself  it  appeared  better  that  he  should  hold 
a  position  of  neutrality.  His  responsibility 
seemed  to  him  better  met  by  standing  neither 
for  religion  nor  against  it,  but  in  a  perfectly 
judicial  frame  of  mind.  He  did  not  take  ac- 
count, however,  of  the  fact  that  this  neutrality 
was  impossible ;  that  it  was  just  what  Pilate 
attempted,  and  just  wherein  he  failed.  If  he 
160 


in  tbc  Collect 

was  not  to  be  counted  among  those  who  would 
by  their  presence  encourage  worship,  then  he 
must  be  counted  among  those  who  by  their 
absence  hinder  its  effect.  On  one  side  or 
other  in  these  great  issues  of  life  every  man's 
weight  is  to  be  thrown,  and  the  Pilates  of 
to-day  —  as  of  that  earlier  time  —  in  their  im- 
possible neutrality  are  often  the  most  insidi- 
ous, although  most  unconscious  opponents  of 
a  generous  cause. 

And  so  to-day  on  this  most  solemn  anniver- 
sary of  religious  history,  while  it  is,  as  the 
passage  says  of  this  interview  with  Pilate, 
"  yet  early,"  let  us  set  before  ourselves  the 
issue  just  as  it  is  now  and  just  as  it  was  then. 
This  morning  demands  of  any  honest-minded 
man  an  answer  to  the  question  :  "  On  which 
side  do  I  propose  to  stand  ? "  It  is  not  a  de- 
mand for  absoluteness  of  conviction  or  unwav- 
ering loyalty,  but  it  is  a  summons  to  recognize 
that  Jesus  Christ  died  on  this  day  largely  at 
the  hands  of  intellectual  dilettanteism  and  in- 
differentism, — the  peculiar  and  besetting  sin 
of  the  cultivated  and  academic  life.  On  which 
side,  then,  do  I  propose  to  stand ;  with  the 
cultivated  neutral  and  his  skillful  question- 
161 


in  tk  College  Chapel 

ing :  What  is  truth  ?  or  with  the  prisoner 
who  in  this  early  morning  says  :  "  Every  one 
who  is  of  the  truth  heareth  my  voice ;  "  with 
Pilate  in  his  neutrality  or  with  Jesus  on  his 

cross  ? 

162 


in  t(jc  College  Chapel 


LXV 
THE  FINISHED  LIFE 

John  xix.  30. 
(PASSION  WEEK  —  SATURDAY) 


last  word  of  Jesus  as  he  gives 
up  his  spirit  is  :  "  It  is  finished." 
But  was  it  what  could  be  called  a 
finished  life  ?  Was  it  not,  on  the  contrary,  a 
terribly  unfinished  life,  prematurely  cut  short, 
without  any  visible  effect  of  his  work,  and 
with  everything  left  to  live  for  ?  Surely,  if 
some  sympathetic  friend  of  Jesus  had  been 
telling  of  his  death,  one  of  the  first  things 
he  would  be  tempted  to  say  would  be  this  : 
"  What  a  fearful  pity  it  was  that  he  died  so 
soon  !  What  a  loss  it  was  to  us  all  that  he 
left  his  life  unfinished.  Think  what  might 
have  happened  if  he  could  only  have  lived  to 
sixty  and  had  had  thirty  years  for  his  ministry 
instead  of  three  !  "  And  yet,  as  Jesus  said,  it 
was  a  finished  life  ;  for  completeness  in  life  is 
not  a  thing  of  quantity,  but  of  quality.  What 
seems  to  be  a  fragment  may  be  in  reality  the 
most  perfect  thing  on  earth.  You  stand  in 
163 


in  t&e  College  Cfjapel 

some  museum  before  a  Greek  statue,  imper- 
fect, mutilated,  a  fragment  of  what  it  was 
meant  to  be.  And  yet,  as  you  look  at  it,  you 
say  :  "  Here  is  perfect  art.  It  is  absolutely 
right ;  the  ideal  which  modern  art  may  imi- 
tate, but  which  it  never  hopes  to  attain." 
Or,  what  again  shall  we  say  of  those  young 
men  of  our  civil  war,  dying  at  twenty-five  at 
the  head  of  their  troops,  pouring  out  all  the 
promise  of  their  life  in  one  splendid  instant  ? 
Did  they  then  die  prematurely  ?  Was  not 
their  life  a  finished  life  ?  What  more  could 
they  ever  have  done  with  it  ?  Why  do  we 
write  their  names  on  our  monuments  so  that 
our  young  men  may  read  of  these  heroes,  ex- 
cept that  they  may  say  to  us  that  life  may  be 
completed,  if  one  will,  even  at  twenty  ?  All  of 
life  that  is  worth  living  is  sometimes  offered 
to  a  man  not  in  a  lifetime,  but  in  a  day. 

And  that  is  what  any  man  must  set  before 
him  as  the  test  and  the  plan  of  his  own  life. 
You  cannot  say  to  yourself  :  "  I  will  live  until 
I  am  seventy,  I  will  accomplish  certain  things, 
and  will  attain  a  certain  position  ; "  for  the 
greatest  and  oldest  of  men  when  they  look 
back  on  their  lives  see  in  them  only  a  frag- 
ment of  what  they  once  dreamed  that  they 
164 


in  tbc  CoIIcjc  Chapel 

might  do  or  be.  But  you  can  design  your 
life,  not  according  to  quantitative  complete- 
ness, but  according  to  qualitative  complete- 
ness. It  may  be  long  or  short,  but  in  either 
case  it  may  be  of  the  right  stuff.  It  may  be 
carved  out  of  pure  marble  with  an  artist's 
hand,  and  then,  whether  the  whole  of  it  re- 
mains to  be  a  thing  of  beauty  or  whether 
it  is  broken  off,  like  a  fragment  of  its  full 
design,  it  is  a  finished  life.  You  give  back 
your  life  to  God  who  gave  it,  perhaps  in  ripe 
old  age,  perhaps,  as  your  Master  did,  at  thirty- 
three,  and  you  say  :  "  I  have  accomplished, 
not  what  I  should  like  to  have  done,  but  what 
Thou  hast  given  me  to  do.  I  have  done  my 
best.  It  is  finished.  Father,  into  thy  hands 
I  commend  my  spirit." 
165 


in  tjje  College 


LXVI 

ATTAINING  TO  THE  RESURRECTION 
Philippians  iii.  n. 

(MONDAY  AFTER  EASTER) 
|HIS  is  certainly  a  very  extraordinary 
saying  of  St.  Paul  —  that  he  hopes 
to  attain  unto  the  resurrection  from 
the  dead.  We  are  so  apt  to  think  of  the 
resurrection  as  a  remote  truth,  to  be  realized 
in  some  distant  future,  when  some  day  we 
shall  die  and  live  again,  that  the  very  idea  of 
attaining  to  such  a  resurrection  now  is  not 
easy  to  grasp.  But  here  we  have  a  resurrec- 
tion which  can  be  attained  any  day.  "  I  have 
not  already  attained,"  says  St.  Paul,  "  but  I 
press  on."  It  is  possible,  that  is  to  say,  for 
a  man  to-day,  who  seems  perfectly  healthy, 
to  be  dying  or  dead,  and  for  a  man  to  rise 
from  the  dead  to-day  and  attain  to  the  resur- 
rection. 

And  thus  the  fundamental  question  of  the 

Easter  season  is  not  :  "  Do  I  believe  that  peo- 

ple when  they  die  shall  rise  again  from  the 

dead  ?  "  but  it  is  "  Have  I  risen  from  the  dead 

166 


iflornmjo  in  tlir  Collrjc  Chapel 

myself  ? "  "  Am  I  alive  to-day,  with  any  touch 
of  the  eternal  life  ? "  Mr.  Ruskin  describes 
a  grim  Scythian  custom  where,  when  the  king 
died,  he  was  set  on  his  throne  at  the  head  of 
his  table,  and  his  vassals,  instead  of  mourning 
for  him,  bowed  before  his  corpse  and  feasted 
in  his  presence.  That  same  ghastly  scene  is 
sometimes  repeated  now,  and  young  men 
think  they  are  sitting  at  a  feast,  when  they  are 
really  sitting  at  a  funeral,  and  believe  them- 
selves to  be,  as  they  say,  "  seeing  life,"  when 
they  are  in  reality  looking  upon  the  death  of 
all  that  is  true  and  fair.  And  on  the  other 
hand  the  most  beautiful  thing  which  is  per- 
mitted for  any  one  to  see  is  the  resurrection 
of  a  human  soul  from  the  dead,  its  deliverance 
from  shame  and  sin,  its  passing  from  death 
into  life.  As  the  father  of  the  prodigal  said  of 
his  boy,  he  was  dead  and  is  alive  again,  and 
in  that  coming  to  his  true  self  he  attains,  as 
surely  as  he  ever  can  in  any  future  world, 
unto  the  resurrection  from  the  dead. 
167 


in  tlje  College  CJjapcl 

LXVII 
SIMON  OF  CYRENE 

iii.  20-26. 


Simon,  the  Cyrenian,  was  just 
a  plain  man,  coming  into  town  on  his 
own  business,  and  meeting  at  the 
gate  this  turbulent  group  surging  out  toward 
the  place  of  crucifixion,  with  the  malefactor 
in  their  midst.  Suddenly  Simon  finds  himself 
turned  about  in  his  own  journey,  swept  back 
by  the  crowd  with  the  cross  of  another  man 
on  his  shoulder,  and  the  humiliation  forced 
upon  him  which  there  seemed  no  reason  for 
him  to  bear. 

How  often  that  happens  in  many  a  life  ! 
You  are  going  your  own  way,  carrying  your 
own  load,  and  suddenly  you  are  called  on  to 
take  up  some  one  else's  burden,  —  a  strange 
cross,  a  home  responsibility,  a  business  duty  ; 
and  you  find  yourself  turned  square  round  in 
the  road  you  meant  to  go.  Your  plan  of  life 
is  interrupted  by  no  fault  of  your  own,  and 
you  are  summoned  to  bear  an  undeserved 
and  unexpected  cross. 

168 


in  tljc  Coutje  Cbapcl 

And  yet,  how  certain  it  is  that  this  man  of 
Cyrene  came  to  look  back  on  this  interruption 
of  his  journey  as  the  one  thing  he  would  not 
have  missed  ?  When  others  were  remember- 
ing the  wonderful  career  of  Jesus,  how  often 
he  must  have  said  :  "  Yes,  but  I  once  had 
the  unapproached  privilege  of  bearing  his 
cross  for  him.  On  one  golden  morning  of 
my  life  I  was  permitted  to  share  his  suffering. 
I  was  called  from  all  my  own  hopes  and  plans 
to  take  up  this  burden  of  another,  and  I  did 
not  let  it  drop.  It  seemed  a  grievous  burden, 
but  it  has  become  my  crowning  joy.  I  did 
not  know  then,  but  I  know  now,  that  my  day 
of  humiliation  was  my  day  of  highest  blessed- 
ness." 

"  I  think  of  the  Cyrenian 
Who  crossed  the  city-gate, 
When  forth  the  stream  was  pouring 
That  bore  thy  cruel  fate. 


"  I  ponder  what  within  him 
The  thoughts  that  woke  that  day 
As  his  unchosen  burden 
He  bore  that  unsought  way. 

"  Yet,  tempted  he  as  we  are  I 
O  Lord,  was  thy  cross  mine  ? 
Am  I,  like  Simon,  bearing 
A  burden  that  is  thine  ? 

169 


;fttarning0  in  t(jc  College  Cfjapcl 

"  Thou  must  have  looked  on  Simon ; 
Turn,  Lord,  and  look  on  me 
Till  I  shall  see  and  follow 
And  bear  thy  cross  for  Thee."  l 

i  Harriet  Ware  Hall,  A  Book  for  Friends,  p.  90.    (Privately 
printed.)    1888. 

I7O 


in  t&e  College  C&aptl 

LXVIII 

POWER  AND  TEMPTATION 
Matthew  iv.  i-n. 

'LL  these  temptations  of  Jesus  came 
to  him  through  the  very  sense  of 
power  of  which  he  could  not  but  be 
aware.  Here  was  this  great  consciousness  of 
capacity  in  him  to  do  wonders,  to  display 
himself,  to  get  glory.  How  should  he  use 
his  gifts  ?  Should  it  be  for  himself,  for 
honor,  for  praise,  or  should  it  be  for  service, 
for  sacrifice,  for  God  ?  The  devil's  temptation 
was  that  Jesus  should  take  the  gifts  of  which 
he  was  conscious  and  make  them  serve  his 
own  ends  of  ambition  or  success.  The  first 
great  decision  in  the  work  of  Jesus  Christ  was 
the  decision  of  the  end  to  which  his  powers 
should  be  dedicated ;  the  use  to  which  his 
powers  should  be  put. 

The  same  fundamental  decision  comes  to 
every  young  man  in  his  own  degree.  Here 
are  your  gifts  and  capacities,  great  or  small. 
What  are  you  to  do  with  them  ?  Are  they 
for  glory  or  for  use  ?  Are  they  for  ambition 
171 


in  tbc  College  Cfjapel 

or  for  service  ?  The  sooner  that  decision  is 
made  the  better.  Some  people  have  never 
quite  done  with  that  temptation  of  the  devil. 
They  go  on  trying  to  direct  their  gifts  to  the 
end  of  reputation,  or  wealth,  or  dominion; 
and  they  attain  that  end  only  to  find  that  it  is 
no  end,  and  that  their  lives,  which  should 
have  grown  broader  and  richer,  have  grown 
shrunken,  and  meagre,  and  unsatisfied.  Such 
a  life  is  like  a  fish  swimming  into  the  laby- 
rinth of  a  weir.  It  follows  along  the  line  of 
its  vocation  until  the  liberty  to  return  grows 
less  and  less ;  and,  at  last,  in  the  very  element 
where  it  seems  most  free,  it  is  in  fact  a  help- 
less captive.  The  man's  occupation  has  be- 
come his  prison.  He  is  the  slave  of  his  own 
powers.  The  devil  has  withered  that  life  with 
his  touch. 

And  then,  on  the  other  hand,  you  turn  to 
lives  which  have  given  themselves  to  the  life  of 
service,  and  what  do  you  see  ?  You  see  their 
capacity  enlarged  through  use,  you  see  small 
gifts  multiplied  into  great  powers.  Few 
things  are  more  remarkable  in  one's  experi- 
ence of  life  than  to  see  men  who  by  nature 
are  not  extraordinarily  endowed  achieve  the 
highest  success  by  sheer  dedication  of  their 
172 


fn  tftt  Colltfft 

moderate  gifts.  Their  capacities  expand 
through  their  self-surrender,  as  leaves  unfold 
under  the  touch  of  the  sun.  They  lose  them- 
selves and  then  they  find  themselves.  The 
devil  tempts  these  men,  not  with  a  sense  of 
their  greatness,  but  with  their  self -distrust ; 
yet  he  tempts  them  in  vain.  Their  weakness 
issues  into  strength ;  their  temptation  devel- 
ops their  power.  The  angels  of  God  have 
come  and  ministered  unto  them. 


in  tljc  College  C&apel 


LXIX 

LOVING   WITH  THE  MIND 
Mark  xii.  30. 

N  the  great  law  of  love  to  God  and 
love  to  man  which  Jesus  repeats  as 
the  law  of  his  own  teaching,  there  is 
one  phrase  that  seems  not  wholly  clear.  You 
can  love  God  with  your  heart  and  your  soul  ; 
you  can  even  increase  your  strength  by  love  ; 
but  how  can  you  love  with  the  mind  ?  Is  it 
not  the  very  quality  of  a  trained  mind  to  be 
unmoved  by  love  or  hate,  dispassionate  and 
unemotional  ?  Is  not  this  the  scientific 
spirit,  this  attitude  of  criticism,  with  no  pre- 
judice or  affection  to  color  its  results  ? 

Of  course  one  must  answer  that  there  is 
much  truth  which  can  be  discovered  by  a  love- 
less mind.  Yet  there  is,  on  the  other  hand, 
much  truth  which  cannot  be  discerned  without 
love.  There  are  many  secrets  of  literature,  of 
art,  of  music,  and  of  the  higher  traits  of  charac- 
ter as  well,  into  which  you  cannot  enter  unless 
you  give  your  mind  to  these  things  with  sym- 
pathy and  affection  and  responsiveness  ;  lov- 
ing them,  as  Jesus  says,  with  the  mind.  One 


iflorninjs  in  tbc  Collrjc  Chapel 

of  our  preachers  has  lately  called  attention  to 
the  new  word  in  literature  which  illustrates 
this  attitude  of  the  mind.1  When  people 
wrote  in  earlier  days  of  other  people  and  then- 
works  they  wrote  biographies  or  criticisms  or 
studies,  but  now  we  have  what  are  called 
"  appreciations  ; "  the  attempt,  that  is  to  say, 
to  enter  into  a  character  and  appreciate  its 
traits  or  its  art,  and  to  love  it  with  the  mind. 
Perhaps  that  is  what  this  ancient  law  asks  of 
you  in  your  relation  to  God,  to  come  not  as  a 
critic,  but  as  a  lover,  to  the  rational  apprecia- 
tion of  the  ways  of  God.  Here  is  the  noblest 
capacity  with  which  human  life  is  endowed. 
It  is  a  great  thing  to  love  God  with  the  heart 
and  soul,  to  let  the  emotions  of  gratitude  to 
Him  or  of  joy  in  his  world  run  free;  but 
to  rise  into  sympathetic  interpretation  of  his 
laws,  to  think  God's  thoughts  after  Him,  and 
to  be  moved  by  the  high  emotions  which  are 
stirred  by  exalted  ideas,  —  to  love  God,  that 
is  to  say,  with  the  mind,  —  that,  I  suppose,  is 
the  highest  function  of  human  life,  and  the 
quality  which  most  endows  a  man  with  insight 
and  power. 

1  Rev.  Leighton  Parks,  D.  D.,  in  a  sermon  at  the  Diocesan  Con- 
vention of  the  Protestant  Episcopal  Church,  Boston,  May,  1895. 

>75 


in  t&c  Collrsc 

LXX 

AM  I  MY  BROTHER'S  KEEPER? 
Genesis  iv.  9. 

JAIN  was  the  first  philosophical  individ- 
ualist ;  the  first  "  laissez-faire  "econo- 
mist. When  God  asked :  "  Where  is 
Abel  ?  "  Cain  answered  :  "  What  responsibil- 
ity have  I  for  him  ?  My  business  is  to  take 
care  of  myself.  Am  I  my  brother's  keeper  ? " 
But  the  interesting  fact  is  that  Cain  had  been 
his  brother's  keeper  though  he  declined  re- 
sponsibility for  him.  He  refused  to  be  respon- 
sible for  his  brother's  life,  but  he  certainly  was 
responsible  for  his  brother's  death.  He  re- 
fused to  be  his  brother's  keeper,  but  he  was 
willing  to  be  his  brother's  slayer.  There  are 
plenty  of  people  to-day  who  are  trying  to  main- 
tain this  same  impossible  theory  of  social  irre- 
sponsibility. They  affirm  that  they  have  no 
social  duty  except  to  mind  their  own  business  ; 
but  that  very  denial  of  responsibility  is  what 
makes  them  among  the  most  responsible 
agents  of  social  disaster.  They  deal  with  their 
affairs  on  the  principle  that  they  are  nobody's 
176 


in  tfot  College 

keeper,  and  so  they  are  stirring  every  day  the 
fires  of  industrial  revolt.  We  are  passing 
through  dark  days  in  the  business  world,  and 
there  are  many  causes  for  the  trouble,  but  the 
deepest  cause  is  Cain's  theory  of  life.  "  Where 
is  thy  brother  ? "  says  God  to  the  business  man 
to-day,  —  "  thy  brother,  the  wage-earner,  the 
victim  of  the  cut-down  and  the  lockout  ? " 
"  Where  is  thy  brother  ? "  says  God  again  to 
the  unscrupulous  agitator,  bringing  distress 
into  many  a  workman's  home  for  the  satisfac- 
tions of  ambition  and  power.  And  to  any  man 
who  answers  :  "  I  know  not.  Am  I  my  bro- 
ther's keeper  ? "  the  rebuke  of  God  is  spoken 
again  :  "  Cursed  art  thou  !  The  voice  of  thy 
brother  crieth  against  thee  from  the  ground." 
177 


in  tfoe  Caliche 
LXXI 

PROFESSIONALISM  AND  PERSONALITY 

i  Corinthians  xii.  31. 


wonderful  chapter  which  follows 
this  verse  becomes  still  more  interest- 
ing when  one  considers  its  connection 
with  the  preceding  passage.  Paul  has  been 
looking  over  the  life  of  his  Christian  brethren, 
and  he  sees  in  it  a  great  variety  of  callings. 
Some  of  his  friends  are  preachers,  —  apostles 
and  prophets,  as  he  calls  them.  Some  are 
teachers,  some  are  doctors,  with  gifts  of  heal- 
ing ;  some  are  politicians,  with  gifts  of  govern- 
ment. The  apostle  speaks  to  them  as  though 
he  were  advising  young  men  as  to  the  choice 
of  their  profession,  and  he  says  :  "  Among  all 
these  professional  opportunities  covet  the 
best  ;  take  that  which  most  fills  out  and  sat- 
isfies your  life."  But  then  he  turns  from 
these  professional  capacities  and  adds  :  "  Be 
sure  that  these  gifts  do  not  crowd  out  of  your 
life  the  higher  capacity  for  sympathy.  For 
you  may  understand  all  knowledge  and  speak 
t  with  all  tongues,  and  if  you  have  lost  thereby 
178 


in  tbr  CoIItffe  Cfcapel 

the  personal,  human,  sympathetic  relation  with 
people  which  we  call  love  you  are  not  really 
to  be  counted  as  a  man.  You  are  nothing 
more  than  an  instrument  of  sound,  a  wind 
instrument  like  a  trumpet,  or  a  clanging  in- 
strument like  a  cymbal."  That  is  the  apos- 
tolic warning  to  the  successful  professional 
man,  —  the  warning  against  the  narrowing, 
self-contented  result  which  sometimes  taints 
even  great  attainments  and  professional  dis- 
tinction. Covet  the  best.  Be  satisfied  with 
nothing  less  than  the  highest  professional 
work  of  doctor,  politician,  or  teacher.  But 
beware  of  the  imprisoning  effect  which  some- 
times comes  of  this  very  success  in  profes- 
sional life,  the  atrophy  of  sensibility,  the  in- 
creasing incapacity  for  sympathy,  for  public 
spirit,  for  charity,  —  an  incapacity  which 
makes  some  men  of  the  highest  endowments 
among  the  least  serviceable,  least  loving,  and 
least  loved  of  a  community.  "  If,"  says  the 
apostle,  "  in  the  gain  of  professional  success 
you  lose  the  higher  gift  of  love,  you  are  no 
longer  a  great  man  ;  you  are  not  even  to  be 
described  as  a  small  man.  You  are  'no- 
thing.' " 

179 


in  tljc  College  Cbapel 

LXXII 
THE  CENTRAL  SOLITUDE 

John  xvi.  32. 

one  of  Frederick  Robertson's  ser- 
mons he  speaks  of  the  conduct  of  life 
as  like  the  conduct  of  atoms,  which 
have  a  certain  attraction  for  each  other,  but  at 
a  certain  point  of  approach  are  repelled  and  do 
not  touch.  There  is  in  every  large  life  a  cer- 
tain central  solitude  of  this  kind  into  which 
no  other  soul  can  enter.  Some  persons  fear 
this  solitude,  some  rejoice  in  it,  but  the  use  of 
it  is  the  test  of  a  man's  life.  A  very  near 
friend  of  Dr.  Brooks' s  once  heard  of  a  man 
who  said  that  he  knew  Dr.  Brooks  intimately ; 
and  this  friend  said :  "  No  man  ought  to  say 
that.  Not  one  of  us  knew  Dr.  Brooks  inti- 
mately. There  was  a  central  Holy  of  Holies 
in  his  life,  into  which  none  of  us  ever  entered." 
So  it  was.  And  this  preservation  of  an  inner 
privacy  for  the  deeper  experiences  of  life  is 
what  proves  a  soul  to  be  peaceful  and  strong. 
Guard  your  soul's  individual  life.  In  the 
midst  of  the  social  world  keep  a  place  for  the 
180 


ifiornmg;0  in  tbe  Collrjc 

nurture  of  the  isolated  life,  for  the  reading 
and  for  the  thoughts  which  deal  with  the  in- 
terior relations  of  the  single  soul  to  the 
immanent  God. 

"  Thyself  amid  the  silence  clear, 
The  world  far  off  and  dim, 
His  presence  close,  the  bright  ones  near, 
Thyself  alone  with  Him." 

That  is  what  makes  a  man  strong  under  the 
tests  of  life.  He  is  not  a  parasitic  plant  de- 
riving its  life  from  some  other  life ;  he  is 
rooted  deep  in  the  soil  of  the  Eternal.  As 
was  said  of  John  Henry  Newman,  such  a  man 
is  never  less  alone  than  when  alone.  "He  is 
not  alone,  because  the  Father  is  with  him." 


in  tfce  Caliche  Cbaprl 

LXXIII 

IF  THOU  KNEWEST  THE  GIFT  OF  GOD 
John  iv.  10. 

usually  notice  in  this  story  the  great 
words  of  Jesus  —  perhaps  the  deepest 
and  richest  series  of  utterances  that 
have  ever  fallen  from  human  lips.  Yet  it  is 
almost  as  striking  to  notice  the  attitude  of 
mind  in  which  the  woman  remained  through- 
out these  wonderful  scenes.  She  seems  to 
have  been  entirely  oblivious  of  the  situation, 
and  unaware  that  anything  great  was  going  on. 
Jesus  speaks  to  her  of  the  living  water,  and 
she  thinks  it  must  be  some  device  which  shall 
save  her  coming  with  her  pitcher  to  the  well 
Then  Jesus  looks  on  her  with  infinite  pathos 
and  says  :  "  If  you  only  knew  the  gift  of  God, 
and  who  it  is  that  is  now  speaking  to  you  ! " 
But  she  does  not  know,  and  shoulders  her 
pitcher  and  trudges  home  again,  reporting 
only  that  she  has  seen  some  one  who  appeared 
a  wonderful  fortune-teller,  and  never  dreaming 
that  the  greatest  words  of  human  history  had 
been  spoken  to  her,  and  her  alone. 
182 


;fRornmj8  in  tljc  College  Cbapel 

If  thou  knewest  the  gift  of  God  !  —  to  have 
had  one's  opportunity  in  one's  hands  and  to 
have  let  it  slip  ;  to  have  had  the  Messiah  sit- 
ting by  you  and  not  to  have  recognized  Him  ; 
to  have  thought  it  just  a  commonplace  day 
when  the  most  sacred  revelations  of  God  were 
occurring,  —  that  is  about  the  saddest  con- 
fession that  any  one  can  make.  And  yet, 
that  is  what  might  happen  to  any  one  any 
day.  No  one  can  be  sure  when  the  great 
exigencies  of  life  are  likely  to  occur.  He 
looks  forward  to  great  things  to  be  done  in 
some  more  favoring  future,  and,  behold,  the 
insignificant  incidents  of  to-day  are  the  greater 
things* which  he  does  not  discern.  He  looks 
forward  to  the  discovery  of  God  in  some 
difficult  intellectual  achievement,  and  mean- 
time the  daily  task  is  full  of  revelation,  and  as 
he'wakes  to  the  morning  the  new  day  stands 
by  him  and  says  :  "  If  you  only  knew  the  gift 
of  God,  and  who  it  is  that  speaks  to  you  to- 
day." And  at  last  perhaps  he  begins  to 
realize  that  the  ordinary  ways  of  daily  life  are 
the  channels  of  God's  revelation,  and  then 
there 

"  Comes  to  soul  and  sense 
The  feeling  which  is  evidence 

183 


in  the  College 


That  very  near  about  us  lies 
The  realm  of  spiritual  mysteries. 
With  smile  of  trust  and  folded  hands, 
The  passive  soul  in  waiting  stands, 
To  feel,  as  flowers  the  sun  and  dew, 
The  one  true  life  its  own  renew." 

184 


jftonungs  in  tfce  College  Cbapel 

LXXIV 

THE  WEDDING  GARMENT 
Matthew  mi.  1  1-14. 


is  a  man  who  has  the  feast  offered 
to  him,  but  is  not  clothed  to  meet  it. 
He  is  unprepared  and  is  therefore 
cast  out.  He  does  not  wear  the  wedding  gar- 
ment and  therefore  is  not  fit  for  the  wedding 
feast  This  seems  at  first  sight  harsh  treat- 
ment ;  but  one  soon  remembers  that  it  was 
the  custom  of  an  Oriental  feast  to  offer  the 
guest  at  his  entrance  a  robe  fit  for  the  occa- 
sion. "  Bring  forth  the  best  robe,"  says  the 
father  of  the  prodigal,  "and  put  it  on  him." 
This  man  had  had  offered  to  him  the  opportu- 
nity of  personal  preparation  and  had  refused 
it.  He  wanted  to  share  the  feast,  but  he 
wanted  to  share  it  on  his  own  terms.  He 
pressed  into  the  happiness  without  the  per- 
sonal preparedness  which  made  that  happiness 
possible. 

Every  man  in  this  way  makes  his  own  world. 
The  habit  of  his  life  clothes  him  like  a  garment, 
and  only  he  who  wears  the  wedding  garment 
185 


in  fyt  College  Cfjapcl 

is  at  home  at  the  wedding  feast.  The  same 
circumstances  are  to  one  man  beautiful  and  to 
another,  at  his  side,  demoralizing.  You  may 
have  prosperity  and  it  may  be  a  source  of 
happiness,  or  the  same  prosperity  and  it  may 
be  a  source  of  peril.  You  may  be  at  a  college 
and  it  may  be  either  regenerating  to  you,  or 
pernicious  in  its  influence,  according  as  you 
are  clothed  or  unclothed  with  the  right  habit 
of  mind.  God  first  asks  for  your  heart  and 
then  offers  you  his  world.  The  wedding 
feast  is  for  him  alone  who  has  accepted  the 

wedding  garment. 

186 


in  tbe  Collrjf 

LXXV 

THE  ESCAPE  FROM  DESPONDENCY 
i  AT/ingv  xbc.  1-13. 

>HIS  is  God's  word  to  man's  despon- 
dency ;  and  when  we  strip  this  man's 
story  of  its  Orientalism,  it  is  really 
the  story  of  many  a  discouraged,  despondent 
man  of  to-day.  Elijah  has  been  doing  his 
best,  but  has  come  to  a  point  where  he  is 
ready  to  give  up.  His  enemies  are  too  many 
for  him.  "  Lord,"  he  says,  "  it  is  enough. 
"  I  have  had  as  much  as  I  can  bear.  I  am 
alone  and  Baal's  prophets  are  four  hundred 
and  fifty  men."  So  he  goes  away  into  solitude, 
and  looks  about  him  for  some  clear  sign  that 
God  has  not  deserted  him.  But  nothing  hap- 
pens. The  great  signs  of  nature  pass  before 
him,  the  storm,  the  lightning,  and  the  earth- 
quake, but  they  only  reflect  his  own  stormy 
mood.  The  Lord  is  not  in  them.  Then, 
within  his  heart,  there  speaks  that  voice  which 
is  at  once  speech  and  silence,  and  it  says  to 
him:  "What  doest  thou  here,  Elijah,"  and 
behold,  the  man  is  convicted.  For  when  he 
187 


fKornfojp  in  t&e  Collie  Chapel 

reflects  on  it  he  is  doing  nothing  at  all.  He 
is  sitting  under  a  tree,  requesting  that  he  may 
die.  He  has  fled  from  his  duty  and  is  hiding 
in  a  cave.  Then  the  voice  says  to  him  :  "  Get 
up  and  go  and  do  your  duty.  You  might  sit 
here  forever  and  get  no  light  on  your  lot. 
The  problem  of  life  is  solved  through  the 
work  of  life.  The  way  out  of  your  despon- 
dency is  in  going  straight  on  with  the  work 
now  ready  to  your  hand.  Answers  to  great 
problems  are  not  so  likely  to  come  to  people 
in  caves,  as  along  the  dusty  road  of  duty- 
doing.  Not  to  the  dreamer,  but  to  the  doer 
come  the  interpretations  of  life.  Elijah, 
Elijah,  what  doest  thou  here  ?  " 
188 


in  tfcc  (tollcffc  Chapel 

LXXVI 

THE  DIFFICULTIES  OF  UNBELIEF 
Matthew  xxiii.  24. 

are  often  very  much  impressed  by 
the  difficulties  of  religious  belief.  It 
seems  hard  to  attain  any  absolute, 
convinced  faith.  There  are  doubts  and  ob- 
scurities which  every  one  feels,  and  these 
questionings  are  often  stirred  into  activity  by 
the  mistaken  efforts  of  the  defenders  of  the 
faith.  There  is  even  a  special  department  in 
theological  teaching  known  as  Apologetics, 
or  the  defense  of  faith ;  as  though  religion 
had  to  be  always  on  the  defensive,  and  as  if 
the  easiest  attitude  of  mind,  even  of  the  least 
philosophical,  were  the  attitude  of  denial. 
But  did  you  ever  consider  the  alternative 
position  and  the  difficulties  which  present 
themselves  when  one  undertakes  absolutely 
and  continuously  to  deny  himself  the  relations 
of  the  religious  life  ?  Did  you  ever  fairly  face 
the  conception  of  a  logically  completed  unbe- 
lief, a  world  stripped  of  its  ideals,  with  no 
region  of  spiritual  hopes  or  of  worship,  a 
189 


in  t&e  College  C&apel 

world  absolutely  without  God,  a  permanently 
faithless  world  ?  What  is  the  difficulty  here  ? 
The  difficulty  is  that  these  aspects  of  life, 
though  they  are  often  hard  to  maintain,  are 
harder  still  to  abandon.  Faith  has  its  per- 
plexities, but  no  sooner  do  you  eliminate  the 
spiritual  world  than  you  are  confronted  with 
a  series  of  experiences,  emotions,  and  intima- 
tions which  are  simply  inexplicable.  That 
was  perhaps  partly  what  Jesus  had  in  mind 
when  he  met  the  Pharisees.  "You  find  it 
hard  to  believe  in  me,"  he  said.  "  Ah,  yes, 
but  is  it  not  still  harder  altogether  to  refuse 
me  ?  You  are  quite  alive  to  the  smaller  diffi- 
culties of  my  position,  but  you  seem  to  be 
quite  unaware  of  the  difficulties  of  your  own 
position.  You  busy  yourself  with  strain- 
ing out  the  gnat  which  floats  on  the  sur- 
face of  your  glass,  but  you  do  not  seem  to 
observe  the  residuary  camel." 

So  with  his  splendid  satire  Jesus  turns  the 
critical  temper  back  upon  itself.  Difficulties 
enough,  God  knows,  there  are  in  every  intellec- 
tual position,  and  intellectual  certainty  usually 
means  the  abnegation  of  the  thinking  faculty. 

But  many  persons  strain  out  the  little  diffi- 
culties and  swallow  the  great  ones.  What  is, 
190 


in  tbe  College  Cbapcl 

on  the  whole,  the  best  working  theory  of  life  ? 
—  that  is  the  only  practical  question.  Under 
which  view  of  life  do  the  facts,  on  the  whole, 
best  fall  ?  Especially,  what  conception  of  life 
holds  the  highest  facts,  the  great  irresistible 
spring-tides,  which  sometimes  rise  within  the 
soul,  of  hope  and  love  and  desire  ?  So 
Browning's  Bishop,  turning  on  his  critic, 
says:  — 

"  And  now  what  are  we  P  unbelievers  both, 
Calm  and  complete,  determinately  fixed 
To-day,  to-morrow,  and  forever,  pray  ? 
You  '11  guarantee  me  that  ?    Not  so,  I  think. 
In  nowise  t    All  we  've  gained  is,  that  belief, 
As  unbelief  before,  shakes  us  by  fits, 
Confounds  us  like  its  predecessor.    Where  's 
The  gain  ?    How  can  we  guard  our  unbelief, 
Make  it  bear  fruit  to  us  ?    The  problem  's  here. 
Just  when  we  are  safest,  there 's  a  sunset-touch, 
A  fancy  from  a  flower-bell,  some  one's  death, 
A  chorus-ending  from  Euripides,  — 
And  that 's  enough  for  fifty  hopes  and  fears 
As  old  and  new  at  once  as  nature's  self, 
To  rap  and  knock  and  enter  in  our  soul, 
Take  hands  and  dance  there,  a  fantastic  ring, 
Round  the  ancient  idol,  on  his  base  again,  — 

What  have  we  gained  then  by  our  unbelief 
But  a  life  of  doubt  diversified  by  faith, 
For  one  of  faith  diversified  by  doubt. 
We  called  tbe  chessboard  white,— we  call  it  black." 
191 


in  t&e  College 
LXXVII 


Galatians  iv.  9. 

is  very  interesting  to  come  so  close 
to  a  great  man  as  we  do  in  this  pas- 
sage, for  the  Apostle  seems  to  be 
discovered  here,  correcting  himself.  It  is  as 
if  he  had  written  one  teaching  to  the  Gala- 
tians, and  then  crossed  it  out  and  written 
another.  "  You  know  God,"  he  says,  "  or  rather 
you  are  known  of  Him."  He  is  asking  him- 
self why  the  Galatians  should  in  a  given  case 
do  their  duty,  and  he  answers  :  "  Because 
they  know  God  ;  they  are  aware  of  His  pur- 
poses and  laws,  and  having  this  rational  un- 
derstanding of  Him  they  know  how  to  act  as 
His  servants."  "  But  no,"  he  goes  on  to  say, 
"that  is  not  the  real  impulse  of  their  duty. 
What  holds  them  to  their  best  is  rather  the 
thought  that  God  knows  them,  that  He  gives 
them  their  duty,  and  that  they  obey."  It  is 
like  the  position  of  a  soldier  under  his  com- 
mander. The  soldier  does  not  expect  to  know 
192 


;f8arnmff0  in  tbe  College 

all  about  the  plan  of  the  campaign,  but  what 
keeps  him  to  his  best  is*  the  knowledge  that 
some  one  knows  about  it ;  that  the  commander 
overlooks  the  field;  that  each  little  skirmish 
has  its  place  in  the  great  design.  That  is 
what  makes  the  soldier  go  down  again  into 
the  smoke  and  dust  of  his  duty  with  his 
timidity  converted  into  faith. 

Knowing  God,  —  that  is  theology  ;  being 
known  of  Him, — that  is  religion.  Both  the- 
ology and  religion  have  their  influence  on 
conduct.  It  is  a  great  thing  to  know  that  one 
knows  God.  There  is  power  in  a  rational 
creed.  But,  after  all,  the  profoundest  impulse 
for  conduct  is  to  know  that  beneath  all  your 
ignorance  of  God  is  His  knowledge  of  you ; 
that  before  you  loved  Him,  He  loved  you, 
that  antecedent  to  your  response  to  Him  was 
His  invitation  to  you.  Thus  it  is  that  a  man 
looks  out  into  each  new  day  and  asks  :  "  What 
is  to  hold  me  to-day  to  my  duty  ? "  Well,  first 
of  all,  everything  I  may  learn  ought  to  help 
me.  It  is  all  God's  truth,  and,  as  I  get  a 
grasp  on  truth  and  stand  on  its  firm  ground, 
my  conduct  is  steadier  and  assured.  But, 
after  all,  the  deeper  safety  lies  in  this  other 
confession,  that  I  am  known  of  God ;  that  I 
193 


in  t&c  ColUfe  Chapel 

am  not  merely  an  explorer,  searching  for 
truth,  but  guided  and  controlled  as  ever  un- 
der the  great  taskmaster's  eye;  known  of 
Him,  with  my  ignorance  of  Him  held  within 
His  knowledge  of  me,  until  the  time  comes 
when  at  last  I  shall  know  even  as  also  I  am 

known. 

194 


;f8aroing8  in  t&e  Collese 

LXXVIII 

FREEDOM  IN  THE  TRUTH 
John  viii.  32. 

[HE  truth  shall  make  you  free;"  — 
that  is  one  of  the  greatest  announce- 
ments of  a  universal  principle  which 
even  Jesus  Christ  ever  made. 

But  the  Jews  began  to  ask  of  him  :  "  How 
can  one  be  a  disciple  of  your  truth  and  yet  be 
free?  Is  not  that  discipleship  only  another 
name  for  bondage  ?  We  are  free  already. 
We  are  in  bondage  to  no  man.  Why  then 
should  we  enter  into  the  servitude  of  obe- 
dience to  your  truth  ?  "  And  to  this  Jesus 
seems  to  answer  :  "  That  depends  upon  what 
it  is  to  be  free.  It  is  a  question  of  your  defi- 
nition of  liberty.  You  seem  to  believe  that 
to  be  free  one  must  have  no  authority  or  lead- 
ership or  master.  But  I  say  unto  you  that 
there  is  no  such  liberty.  You  must  be  the 
servant  of  something.  You  must  be  under 
the  authority  of  your  law,  or  your  superstition, 
or  your  God,  or  yourself.  Freedom  on  any 
other  terms  is  not  freedom,  it  is  lawlessness. 
'95 


in  t&e  College 

Indeed   it   may   be  more  like   slavery  than 
freedom." 

What  is  a  free  country  ?  Not  a  country 
without  law,  —  a  country  of  the  anarchist,  — 
but  a  country  where  the  law  encourages  each 
citizen  to  be  and  to  do  his  best.  A  free 
country  gives  every  man  a  chance.  It  opens 
life  at  the  top.  It  invites  one's  allegiance 
from  the  things  which  enslave  to  the  things 
which  enlarge.  And  that  is  the  only  liberty, 
—  a  transfer  of  allegiance,  a  higher  attach- 
ment, which  sets  free  from  the  lower  enslave- 
ments of  life.  Suppose  a  man  is  the  slave  of 
a  sin,  how  does  he  get  free  ?  He  frees  him- 
self from  his  sin  by  attaching  himself  to  some 
better  interest.  Sin  is  not  driven  out  of  one's 
life;  it  is  crowded  out.  Suppose  a  man  is 
the  slave  of  himself,  sunk  in  the  self-absorbed 
and  ungenerous  life,  how  does  he  get  free  ? 
He  gets  free  by  finding  an  end  in  life  which 
is  larger  than  himself.  He  becomes  the  ser- 
vant of  the  truth,  and  the  truth  makes  him 
free.  Suppose  a  man  asks  himself,  "  What 
can  religion  do  for  me  ?  It  does  not  solve  all 
my  problems,  or  satisfy  all  my  needs.  What 
then  does  religion  do  ?  "  Well,  first  of  all,  it 
gives  one  liberty.  It  detaches  one's  life  from 
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in  tbc  Collcjc  Cbapcl 

the  things  which  shut  it  in,  and  attaches  it 
to  those  ideal  ends  which  give  enlargement, 
emancipation,  range  to  life.  God  speaks  to 
you  of  duty,  of  self-control,  of  power  in  your 
prayers,  and  then  you  go  out  into  the  world 
again,  not  as  if  all  were  plain  before  you,  but 
at  least  with  a  free  heart,  and  a  mind  not  in 
bondage  to  the  world  of  circumstance  or  of 
trivial  cares.  The  truth  of  God,  so  far  as  it 
has  been  revealed  to  you,  has  made  you  free. 
You  have  found  the  perfect  law,  the  law  of 
liberty. 


in  t&c  College  Cbapcl 

LXXIX 
THE   SOIL  AND    THE  SEED 

Matthew  xiii.  1-9. 

takes  two  things  to  make  a  seed 
grow.  One  is  a  good  seed,  and  the 
other  is  a  good  soil.  One  is  what 
the  sower  provides,  and  the  other  is  what  the 
ploughman  prepares.  God's  best  seed  falls 
in  vain  on  a  rock.  Man's  best  soil  is  unfruit- 
ful till  the  sower  visits  it.  Now  the  tilling  of 
the  soil  of  life  is  what  in  all  its  different  forms 
we  call  culture,  and  the  expansion  of  God's 
germinating  influence  is  what  we  call  religion. 
Some  people  think  that  either  of  these  alone 
is  enough  to  insure  a  good  crop.  Some  think 
that  culture  makes  a  man  fruitful,  and  some 
think  religion  is  a  spontaneous  growth  ;  and 
some  even  talk  of  a  conflict  between  the  two. 
But  culture  does  for  a  man  just  what  it  does 
for  a  field.  It  deepens  the  soil  and  makes  it 
ready,  and  that  is  all.  The  merely  cultivated 
man  is  nothing  more  than  a  ploughed  field 
which  has  not  been  sown,  and  when  it  comes 
to  the  proper  time  of  harvest  has  a  most 
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in  tfce  ColUffe 

empty  and  untimely  look.  And  religion 
alone  does  not  often  penetrate  into  the  unpre- 
pared life.  Sometimes,  indeed,  it  seems  to 
force  its  way  as  by  a  miracle,  and  take  root, 
as  we  see  a  tree  or  shrub  growing  as  it  seems 
without  any  soil  in  which  to  cling.  But  in 
the  normal  way  of  life  the  seed  of  God  falls 
in  vain  upon  a  soil  which  is  not  deepened  and 
softened  to  receive  it.  It  waits  for  prepared- 
ness of  nature,  for  the  obedient  will,  the 
awakened  mind,  the  receptive  heart ;  —  and 
all  these  forms  of  self-discipline  are  compre- 
hended in  any  genuine  self-culture. 

Culture  and  religion  — here  they  meet  in 
university  life.  Most  of  your  time  is  given  to 
culture.  What  are  you  doing  ?  You  are  en- 
riching and  spading  up  the  soil  of  life.  That 
is  the  test  of  culture.  Is  it  quickening,  deep- 
ening, stimulating  the  mind  ?  Is  it  opening 
the  imagination  and  training  the  will  ?  Then 
it  is  true  culture  and  not  that  spurious  culti- 
vation which  spreads  over  life  gravel  instead 
of  fertilizers.  Culture  prepares  the  soil ;  and 
then  in  sacred  moments,  perhaps  in  your  wor- 
ship here,  perhaps  in  the  solitude  of  your  own 
experience,  or  perhaps  in  the  busiest  moments 
of  your  day,  God,  the  sower,  comes,  scattering 
199 


iHormng;0  in  tljc  Colic  g;e  Cbapcl 

His  seeds  of  suggestion  and  His  minute  influ- 
ences for  good  over  the  heart,  and  what  He 
needs  is  a  receptive  mind  and  an  awakened 
heart ;  the  life  of  man  ready  for  the  life  of 
God,  and  the  descending  influences  of  God 
finding  depth  of  earth  within  the  life  of  man. 
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in  tjjc  College  Cjjaptl 

LXXX 

THE  LORD'S  PRAYER,  I  1 
Matthew  vi.  1-15. 

JROM  day  to  day  we  gather  here  and 
repeat  together  the  Lord's  Prayer. 
One  is  tempted  sometimes  to  wonder 
whether  in  this  daily  repetition  the  prayer 
keeps  its  freshness  and  reality.  I  will  not  say 
that  even  if  it  becomes  a  mere  form  it  is  use- 
less in  our  worship.  It  is  something  even  to 
have  a  form  so  rich  in  the  associations  of 
home  and  of  church,  of  the  prayers  of  child- 
hood, and  the  centuries  of  Christian  worship. 
And  yet  this  prayer  is  first  of  all  a  protest 
against  formalism.  "  Use  not  vain  repeti- 
tions," says  Jesus,  and  then  he  goes  on  to 
give  this  type  of  restrained,  unswerving,  con- 
centrated prayer. 

While  the  prayer,  however,  is  a  protest 
against  formalism  it  is  itself  extraordinarily 
beautiful  in  form.  When  a  clear  mind  ex- 

l  See  also,  F.  D.  Maurice,  The  Lord's  Prayer,  London,  1861 ; 
Robert  Eyton,  The  Lord's  Prayer,  London,  1892 ;  H.  W.  Foote, 
Thy  Kingdom  Come,  Boston,  1891. 

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in  tljc  CCollcofe  Cfjapcl 

presses  a  deep  purpose  its  expression  is  al- 
ways orderly,  and  the  petitions  of  the  Lord's 
Prayer  do  not  unfold  their  quality  until  we 
consider  the  form  in  which  they  are  ex- 
pressed. Look  for  a  moment  at  the  order 
of  these  petitions.  There  are  two  series  of 
prayers.  The  first  series  relate  to  God,  His 
kingdom,  and  His  will ;  the  second  series  deal 
with  men,  their  bread,  their  trespasses,  and 
their  temptations.  The  Lord's  Prayer,  that 
is  to  say,  reverses  the  common  order  of  pe- 
tition. Most  people  turn  to  God  first  of  all 
with  their  own  needs.  The  Lord's  Prayer 
postpones  these  needs  of  bread  and  of  for- 
giveness, and  asks  first  of  all  for  God's  king- 
dom and  His  will.  Thus  it  is,  first  of  all,  an 
unselfish  prayer.  When  a  man  comes  here 
and  prays  the  Lord's  Prayer,  he,  first  of  all, 
subordinates  himself;  he  postpones  his  own 
needs.  He  subdues  his  thoughts  to  the  great 
purposes  of  God.  He  prays  first  for  God's 
kingdom,  however  it  may  come,  whether 
through  joy  and  peace  or  through  much  trou- 
ble and  pain ;  and  then,  in  the  light  of  that 
supreme  and  self -subordinating  desire  for  the 
larger  glory,  the  man  goes  on  to  ask  for  his 
own  bread  and  the  forgiveness  of  his  own  sin. 
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in  tbc  Collfje  Cljapel 

LXXXI 

THE  LORD'S  PRAYER,  n 
OUR  FATHER 
Matthew  v.  21-25. 

HAVE  said  that  the  Lord's  Prayer  is 
by  its  very  form  an  unselfish  prayer. 
This  same  mark  of  it  is  to  be  seen  in 
another  way  by  the  word  with  which  it  begins. 
It  does  not  pray  :  "  My  Father,  my  bread, 
my  trespasses."  It  prays  throughout  for 
blessings  which  are  "ours."  Not  my  isolated 
life,  but  the  common  life  I  share  is  that  for 
which  I  ask  the  help  of  God.  Even  when  a 
man  enters  into  his  inner  chamber  and  shuts 
the  door,  and  is  alone,  he  still  says :  "  Our 
Father."  He  takes  up  into  his  solitary 
prayer  the  lives  which  for  the  moment  are 
bound  up  in  his.  He  thinks  of  those  he  loves 
and  says :  "  Our  Father."  He  sets  himself 
right  with  those  he  does  not  love,  reconciles 
himself  with  his  brother,  and  says :  "  Our 
Father."  He  joins  himself  with  the  whole 
great  company  of  those  who  have  said  this 
prayer  in  all  the  ages,  and  have  found  peace 
203 


in  it,  and  with  that  great  sense  of  companion- 
ship the  solitude  of  his  own  experience  is 
banished,  and  he  is  compassed  about  with  a 
cloud  of  witnesses,  living  and  dead,  as  he 
bends  alone,  and  in  his  half-whispered  prayer 
begins  to  say  :  "  Our  Father." 
204 


in  t&e  Collcjc  Cljapcl 
LXXXII 

THE   LORD'S   PRAYER,  III 

FATHER   AND  SON 
Galatians  iii.  26  ;  iv.  6. 

HE  fatherhood  of  God  has  become 
so  familiar  a  phrase  that  we  hardly 
,  realize  what  a  revolution  of  thought 
it  represents.  In  the  whole  Old  Testament, 
so  the  scholars  say,  God  is  spoken  of  but 
seven  times  as  Father ;  five  times  as  Father 
of  the  Hebrew  people,  once  to  David  as  the 
father  of  his  son  Solomon,  and  once  as  a 
prediction  that  sometime  men  would  thus 
pray.  And  so  when  Jesus  at  the  beginning 
of  his  prayer  says  :  "  After  this  manner  pray, 
Our  Father,"  he  is  opening  the  door  into  a 
new  conception  of  God's  relation  to  man. 

And  what  is  this  conception  ?  It  is  the  rec- 
ognition of  kinship.  It  is  the  conviction  that 
the  spiritual  life  in  man  is  of  the  same  nature 
as  the  spiritual  life  in  God.  The  child's  kin- 
ship to  the  parent  involves  the  natural  inherit- 
ance of  capacity  and  destiny.  "  If  children," 
says  St.  Paul,  "  then  heirs,  heirs  of  God,  and 


in  tbe  College  £f)apcl 

joint  heirs  with  Christ."  "Because  we  are 
sons  we  cry,  Abba,  Father."  We  are  not 
Greek  philosophers  interpreting  the  causes 
of  nature  or  the  world  of  ideas ;  we  are  not 
Hebrew  prophets  representing  a  sacred  na- 
tion ;  we  are  children,  with  the  rights  and 
gifts  of  children,  and  the  assurance  of  a 
father's  confidence  and  love.  All  this  great 
promise  the  humblest  Christian  claims  when 
he  begins  to  pray  the  Lord's  Prayer.  He  says, 
"  I  am  not  a  brute,  I  am  not  a  clod,  I  am  a 
partaker  of  the  Divine  nature;  I  claim  the 
promise  of  a  child.  And  that  sense  of  kin- 
ship summons  me  to  my  best.  I  pray  as  my 
Father's  son,  and  as  his  son  I  bear  a  name 
which  must  not  be  stained.  Noblesse  oblige. 
There  are  some  things  which  I  cannot  de- 
grade myself  to  do  because  my  position  for- 
bids them.  There  are  some  things  to  which 
I  could  not  attain  of  myself,  but  which  are 
made  possible  to  me  as  my  Father's  son.  I 
accept  the  unearned  privilege  of  my  descent  ; 
I  claim  the  great  inheritance  of  the  kinship 
of  God,  and  out  of  my  self-distrust  and  weak- 
ness I  turn  to  self-respect  and  strength,  when 
I  pray  :  '  Our  Father.'  " 
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in  tbc  College  Cljapd 
LXXXIII 

THE  LORD'S  PRAYER,  IV 

HALLOWED  BE  THY  NAME 
Exodus  xx.  1-7. 

SUPPOSE  that  to  many  a  reader  the 
prayer  :  "  Holy  be  Thy  name,"  means 
little  more  than  :  "  Let  me  not  be 
profane ;  help  me  to  keep  myself  from  blas- 
phemy." But  it  is  not  likely  that  Jesus  be- 
gan his  prayer  with  any  such  elementary 
desire  as  this  ;  or  that  our  first  prayer  need 
be  only  a  prayer  to  be  kept  from  irreverence. 
The  name  of  God  to  the  Hebrews  was  much 
more  than  a  title.  His  name  represented  all 
His  ways  of  revelation.  The  Hebrews  did 
not  speak  the  name  of  God.  It  was  a  word 
too  sacred  for  utterance.  Thus  the  man  who 
begins  the  Lord's  Prayer  in  that  Hebrew 
spirit  first  summons  to  his  thought  the  things 
which  are  the  most  sacred  in  the  world  to 
him,  the  thoughts  and  purposes  which  stand 
to  him  for  God ;  the  associations,  memories, 
and  ideals  which  make  life  holy,  and  asks  that 
these  may  lead  him  into  his  own  prayer. 
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in  tbr  Collctrc  Cfjapcl 

What  he  says  is  this :  "  My  Father,  and  the 
Father  of  all  other  souls,  renew  within  me  my 
most  sacred  thoughts  and  all  the  holy  associa- 
tions which  are  to  me  the  symbol  of  Thyself. 
Give  to  me  a  sense  of  the  sanctity  of  the 
world.  Set  me  in  the  right  mood  of  prayer. 
And  as  I  thus  reverently  look  out  on  Thy 
varied  ways  of  revelation  and  of  righteousness, 
help  me  to  bring  my  own  spirit  into  this  unity 
with  Thyself,  to  make  a  part  of  Thy  holy 
world,  and  humbly  to  begin  my  prayer  by 
hallowing  Thy  name." 
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LXXXIV 

THE  LORD'S  PRAYER,  V 

THY  KINGDOM   COME 
Luke  x\\\.  21. 


prayer  that  the  kingdom  of  God 
might  come  had  long  been  familiar  to 
the  Hebrews.  They  had  been  for 
centuries  dreaming  of  a  time  when  their  ty- 
rants should  be  overcome  and  their  nation 
delivered  and  their  God  rule.  But  all  this 
desire  was  for  an  outward  change.  Some  day 
the  Romans  and  their  tax-gatherers  should  be 
expelled  from  the  land  and  then  the  kingdom 
would  come.  Jesus  repeats  the  same  prayer, 
but  with  a  new  significance  in  the  familiar 
words.  He  is  not  thinking  of  a  Hebrew 
theocracy,  or  a  Roman  defeat  ;  he  is  thinking 
of  a  human,  universal,  spiritual  emancipation. 
There  dawns  before  his  inspired  imagination 
the  unparalleled  conception  of  a  purified  and 
regenerated  people.  Never  did  a  modern 
socialist  in  his  dream  of  a  better  outward  order 
surpass  this  vision  of  Jesus  of  a  coming  king- 
dom of  God 

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in  t&e  College 

But  to  Jesus  the  means  to  that  outward 
transformation  were  always  personal  and  indi- 
vidual. The  golden  age,  as  Mr.  Spencer  has 
said,  could  not  be  made  out  of  leaden  people. 
The  first  condition  of  the  outward  kingdom 
must  be  the  kingdom  within.  The  new  order 
must  be  the  product  of  the  new  life.  That  is 
the  doctrine  of  the  social  order  in  the  Lord's 
Prayer. 

We  too  are  looking  for  outward  reform  in 
legislation  and  economics.  It  is  all  a  part  of 
the  movement  to  the  kingdom  of  God.  Yet 
any  outward  transformation  which  is  to  last 
proceeds  from  regenerated  lives.  The  king- 
dom of  God  is  within  before  it  is  without. 
Do  you  want  a  better  world  ?  Well,  plan  for 
it,  and  work  for  it.  But,  first  of  all,  enter 
into  the  inner  chamber  of  your  prayer,  and 
say :  "  Lord,  make  me  a  fit  instrument  of  thy 
kingdom.  Purify  my  heart,  that  I  may  purify 
thy  world.  I  would  live  for  others'  sakes, 
but  first  of  all  that  great  self-sacrifice  must  be 
obeyed :  '  For  their  sakes  I  sanctify  myself, 
Reign  thus  in  me  that  I  may  rationally  pray  : 
'  Thy  kingdom  come  ! ' ' 

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fflorninjs  in  tbt  Collfjc 


LXXXV 

THE  LORD'S  PRAYER,  VI 

THY  WILL  BE  DONE 
Luke  xxii.  39-46. 

HE  Lord's  Prayer  begins  as  a  prayer 
for  the  great  things.  It  prays  for 
a  sanctified  world:  "Holy  be  Thy 
name."  It  gives  form  to  that  great  hope  : 
"Thy  kingdom  come."  It  deals  with  the 
means  of  that  great  coming  :  "  Thy  will  be 
done."  The  coming  of  the  kingdom  and  the 
hallowing  of  the  name  are  to  happen  through 
the  doing  of  the  will. 

I  suppose  that  most  prayers  which  ask  that 
God's  will  may  be  done  are  prayers  of  passive 
acquiescence  and  resignation.  We  are  apt  to 
pray  "  Thy  will  be  done,"  as  though  we  were 
saying  :  "  Let  it  be  done  in  spite  of  us  and 
even  against  our  wills,  and  we  will  try  to  bear 
it."  But  that  is  not  the  teaching  of  the  Lord's 
Prayer.  "  Thy  will  be  done  ;  "  —  by  whom  ? 
By  the  man  that  thus  prays  !  He  prays  to 
have  his  part  in  the  accomplishment  of  God's 
will,  even  as  Jesus  prays  in  the  Garden  : 
"Thy  will  be  done,"  and  then  rises  and  pro- 

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ceeds  to  do  that  will.  The  prayer  recognizes 
the  solemn  and  fundamental  truth  that  the 
will,  even  of  God  Himself,  works,  in  its 
human  relations,  through  the  service  of  man. 
Here,  for  instance,  is  a  social  abuse.  What 
is  God's  will  toward  it  ?  His  will  is  that  man 
should  remove  it.  Here  is  a  threat  of  cholera, 
and  people  pray  that  God's  will  be  done. 
But  what  is  God's  will  ?  His  will  is  that  the 
town  shall  be  cleansed.  And  who  are  to  do 
His  will  ?  Why,  the  citizens.  Typhoid  fever 
and  bad  drainage  are  not  the  will  of  God. 
The  will  of  God  is  that  they  should  be 
abolished.  Social  wrongs  are  not  to  be  en- 
dured with  resignation.  They  simply  indicate 
to  man  what  is  God's  will.  And  who  is  to  do 
God's  will  in  these  things?  We  are.  The 
man  who  enters  into  his  closet  and  says : 
"  Thy  will  be  done,"  is  asking  no  mere  help 
to  bear  the  unavoidable  ;  he  is  asking  help  to 
be  a  participator  in  the  purposes  of  God,  a 
laborer  together  with  Him,  first  a  discerner 
and  then  a  doer  of  his  will.  "  Our  Father," 
he  says,  "accomplish  Thine  ends  not  over 
me,  or  in  spite  of  me,  but  through  me, — Thou 
the  power  and  I  the  instrument,  —  Thine  to 
will  and  mine  to  do." 

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LXXXVI 

THE  LORD'S  PRAYER,  VII 

DAILY  BREAD 

|HE  Lord's  Prayer  begins  with  the  de- 
sire for  the  great  things,  the  univer- 
sal needs ;  a  holy  world,  a  kingdom 
of  righteousness,  the  will  of  God  fulfilled. 
Then,  in  the  light  of  these  great  things  it 
goes  on  to  one's  personal  needs,  and  prays, 
first  of  all,  for  the  present,  then  for  the  past, 
then  for  the  future.  The  prayer  for  the  pres- 
ent is  this :  "  Give  us  our  daily  bread,"  — 
our  bread,  that  is  to  say,  sufficient  for  to-day, 
enough  to  live  on  and  to  work  by,  just  for  to- 
day. The  prayer  is  limitative.  It  puts  re- 
straint on  my  desire  and  limit  on  my  ambition. 
It  does  not  demand  the  future.  It  looks  only 
to  this  present  unexplored  and  unknown  day. 
"  Give  us  in  this  day  what  is  necessary  for  us, 
fit  to  sustain  us,  —  strength  to  do  thy  will, 
patience  to  bring  in  thy  kingdom,  grace  to  hal- 
low thy  name." 

Into  the  midst  of  the  restless  anticipations 
of  modern  life,  its  living  of  to-morrow's  life  in 
213 


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to-day's  anxiety,  its  social  disease  which  has 
been  described  as  "  Americanitis,"  and  which, 
if  it  is  not  arrested,  will  have  to  be  oper- 
ated on  some  day  at  the  risk  of  the  nation's 
life,  there  enters  every  morning  in  your 
daily  prayer  the  desire  for  quiet  acceptance 
of  the  day's  blessings,  the  dismissal  of  the 
care  for  the  morrow,  the  sense  of  sufficiency 
in  the  bread  of  to-day  :  — 

"  Lord,  for  to-morrow  and  its  needs  I  do  not  pray, 
Keep  me  from  stain  of  sin,  just  for  to-day. 
Let  me  both  diligently  work,  and  duly  pray, 
Let  me  be  kind  in  word  and  deed,  just  for  to-day. 
Let  me  no  wrong  or  idle  word  unthinking  say, 
Set  thou  a  seal  upon  my  lips,  just  for  to-day. 
Let  me  be  slow  to  do  my  will,  prompt  to  obey, 
Help  me  to  sacrifice  myself,  just  for  to-day. 
So  for  to-morrow  and  its  needs,  I  do  not  pray, 
But  help  me,  keep  me,  hold  me,  Lord,  just  for  to-day." 

214 


in  tbe  Colltjt  Chapel 
LXXXVII     • 

THE  LORD'S  PRAYER,  VUI 

FORGIVENESS 
Luke  xii.  1-5. 

come  to  the  petition  in  the  Lord's 
Prayer  which  is  the  easiest  to  under- 
stand and  the  hardest  to  pray,  —  the 
prayer  that  we  may  be  forgiven  as  we  forgive. 
This  prayer  does  not,  of  course,  ask  God  to 
measure  His  goodness  by  our  virtues.  We 
should  not  dare  to  ask  that  God  would  deal 
with  us  just  as  we  have  dealt  with  others.  It 
is  the  spirit  of  forgiveness  for  which  we  pray. 
"  Give  us  forgiveness,"  we  ask,  "  because  we 
come  in  the  spirit  of  forgiveness."  The  spirit 
of  forgiveness,  that  is  to  say,  is  the  condition 
and  prerequisite  of  the  prayer  for  forgiveness. 
If  you  do  not  love  your  brother  whom  you 
have  seen,  how  can  you  truly  pray  to  God 
whom  you  have  not  seen  ?  If  a  man  comes 
to  his  prayer  with  hate  in  his  heart,  he  makes 
it  impossible  for  God  to  forgive  him.  He  is 
shutting  the  door  which  opens  into  the  spirit 
215 


in  tbc  College  <£Ijapd 

of  prayer.     Right-mindedness  to  man  is  the 
first  condition  of  right  prayer  to  God. 

The  traveler  in  Egypt  sometimes  looks  out 
in  the  early  morning  and  sees  an  Arab  pre- 
paring to  say  his  prayers.  The  man  goes 
down  to  the  river-bank  and  spreads  his  little 
carpet  so  that  he  shall  look  toward  Mecca ; 
but  before  he  kneels  he  crouches  on  the  bank, 
and  cleanses  his  lips,  his  tongue,  his  hands, 
even  his  feet,  so  that  he  shall  bring  to  his 
prayer  no  unclean  word  or  deed.  It  is  as  if 
he  first  said  with  the  Psalmist :  "  Wash  me 
thoroughly  of  my  iniquity ;  purge  me  of  my 
sin  ;  make  me  a  clean  heart ;  renew  in  me  a 
right  spirit ; "  and  then  with  a  right  spirit  in 
him,  he  bends  and  rises  and  bows  again  in 
his  prayer.  The  petition  for  a  forgiving 
spirit  prepares  one  in  the  same  way  to  say  his 
morning  prayer.  It  cleanses  the  tongue ;  it 
washes  the  motives  ;  it  purifies  the  thoughts 
of  their  uncharitableness  ;  and  then,  in  this 
spirit  of  forgiveness  even  toward  those  who 
have  wronged  him,  the  Christian  is  clean 
enough  to  ask  for  the  forgiveness  of  his  own 

sin. 

216 


in  tfre  ColUfft  Chapel 
LXXXVIII 

THE  LORD'S   PRAYER,   IX 

TEMPTATIONS 
James  i.  12-17. 

HIS  passage  from  the  Epistle  of  James 
is  a  commentary  on  the  last  petition 
,  of  the  Lord's  Prayer.  When  we 
pray :  "  Lead  us  not  into  temptation,"  it  is, 
as  James  says,  not  God  who  tempts,  for  God 
tempteth  no  man.  The  temptation  comes 
through  our  misuse  of  the  circumstances 
which  God  offers  us  as  our  opportunity.  We 
turn  these  circumstances  into  temptations. 

Every  condition  of  life  has  these  two  aspects. 
It  is  on  the  one  hand  an  opportunity,  and  it 
is  on  the  other  hand  a  temptation.  God  gives 
it  as  an  opportunity  and  we  misuse  the  oppor- 
tunity and  it  becomes  our  temptation.  The 
rich  have  their  special  and  great  opportunity 
of  generous  service  for  the  common  good,  and 
yet  through  that  very  opportunity  comes  their 
special  temptation.  The  poor  are  saved  by 
their  lot  from  many  temptations  of  self-centred 
and  frivolous  luxury,  but  are  much  tempted 
ai; 


in  tbr  College  Cbapcl 

by  their  poverty  itself.  The  healthy  have  a 
great  gift  of  God,  but  they  are  tempted  by 
that  very  gift  to  recklessness,  inconsiderate- 
ness  and  self -injury.  The  sick  receive  pecul- 
iar blessings  of  patience  and  resignation,  but 
are  much  tempted  to  selfishness  and  discon- 
tent. The  business  man  is  tempted  by  his 
very  knowledge  of  the  world  to  the  hardness 
of  materialism ;  the  minister  is  tempted  by  his 
very  indifference  to  the  world  to  unsophisti- 
cated imprudence.  Wherever  on  earth  a  man 
may  be  he  must  scrutinize  his  future,  and 
calculate  his  powers,  and  face  his  problems, 
and  pray  :  "  My  God,  prevent  my  vocation 
from  becoming  my  temptation.  Let  me  not 
put  myself  where  I  shall  be  tried  over  much. 
Save  me  from  the  peculiar  temptation  of  my 
special  lot.  Deliver  me  from  its  evils  and 
lead  me  not  round  its  temptations,  but  through 
them  into  its  opportunity  and  joy." 
218 


in  tljc  College  C&aptl 
• 

LXXXIX 

SIMPLICITY  TOWARD  CHRIST 
2  Corinthians  ».  3. 

listening,  as  we  have  done,  from 
day  to  day  to  Bishop  Vincent,  there 
has  repeatedly  come  to  my  mind  this 
phrase :  The  simplicity  that  is  in  Christ ; 
or,  as  the  Revised  Version  more  accurately 
translates  it,  the  simplicity  that  is  toward 
Christ,  —  the  power  which  is  often  so  much 
greater  than  eloquence,  of  an  obviously  genu- 
ine, sincere,  simple  Christian  life. 

But  when  one  inquires  into  the  nature  of 
this  Christian  simplicity,  which  is  one  of  the 
fairest  blooms  of  character,  it  turns  out  to  be, 
so  to  speak,  not  so  simple  a  trait  as  it  at  first 
appeared.  Of  course,  there  is  a  kind  of  sim- 
plicity which  is  a  survival  of  childhood,  a 
guileless,  childish  ignorance ;  but  when  a  man 
is  simple  in  a  childish  way,  he  is  only  what  we 
call  a  simpleton.  Christian  simplicity  is  not 
a  survival  but  an  achievement,  wrought  out  of 
the  struggles  and  problems  of  maturer  life. 
It  is  not  an  infantile  but  a  masculine  trait 
219 


in  t&e  College 

What  then  is  simplicity  ?  The  Lathi  word 
means  singleness,  unmixed  ness,  straightfor- 
wardness. It  is  sometimes  used  of  wood  which 
is  straight-grained.  What  simplifies  life  is  to 
have  a  single,  specific  direction  in  which  to 
grow,  a  straight-grained,  definite  intention,  the 
possibility  of  a  straightforward  life.  The  scat- 
tered, divergent,  wavering  life,  —  what  is  this 
but  what  we  call  the  dissipating  career  ?  It 
abandons  self-concentration  and  steadiness  ;  it 
dissipates  its  energy.  It  does  not  mean  to 
begin  wrong,  but  because  it  has  no  fixity  of 
direction  it  becomes,  as  we  say,  dissipated. 
And  what  is  it,  once  more,  which  gives  direc- 
tion, unity,  simplicity,  to  life  ?  That  is  made 
plain  in  this  same  passage.  It  is  the  simplicity, 
says  the  New  Version,  which  is  toward  Christ. 
What  gives  straightforwardness  is  not  the 
condition  in  which  we  are,  but  the  ideal  toward 
which  we  are  .heading.  What  simplifies  life 
is  to  say  something  like  this  :  "  I  do  not  pre- 
tend to  know  all  about  religion,  or  duty,  or 
Christ,  but  I  do  propose  to  live  along  the  line 
of  life  which  I  will  call  toward  Christ.  I 
propose  to  think  less  of  what  I  may  live  by, 
and  more  of  what  I  may  live  toward."  When 
a  man  makes  this  decision  he  has  not  indeed 

220 


fHorninjrs  in  the  College  C&apcl 

solved  all  the  problems  of  life,  but  he  has 
amazingly  simplified  them.  Many  things 
which  had  been  perplexing,  disturbing,  con- 
fusing, now  fall  into  line  behind  that  one  com- 
prehensive loyalty.  He  has,  as  it  were,  come 
out  of  the  woods,  and  found  a  high  road.  It 
is  not  all  level,  or  easy ;  there  is  many  a  sharp 
ascent  in  it,  and  many  a  shadowy  valley.  But 
at  least  the  way  is  clear,  and  he  knows 
whither  it  leads,  and  he  has  found  his  bearings, 
and  he  trudges  along  with  a  quiet  mind,  even 
though  with  a  weary  step,  for  he  has  emerged 
from  the  bewildering  underbrush  of  life  into 
the  simplicity  which  is  toward  Christ 

221 


in  tljt  College 
xc 

OPEN  OUR  EYES 
2  Kings  vi.  17. 

(END  OF  COLLEGE  TERM) 
JHIS  young  man  did  not  see  things  as 
they  really  were,  because,  as  we  say 
in  smaller  matters,  he  did  not  have 
his  eyes  open.  He  saw  the  horses  and  chari- 
ots of  Syria  round  about  him,  and  the  enemy 
seemed  too  strong  for  him,  and  then  Elisha 
prayed  :  "  Lord,  open  his  eyes,"  and  the 
young  man  saw  that  over  against  his  enemies 
there  was  a  host  of  spiritual  allies,  so  that 
"  They  that  be  with  us  are  more  than  they 
that  be  with  them." 

As  we  look  back  over  this  closing  college 
year  with  all  its  problems  and  duties,  its  con- 
flicts and  fears,  it  is  with  something  of  this 
same  sense  that  we  have  not  half  known  the 
powers  which  were  on  our  side.  Sometimes 
we  have  thought  the  enemy  too  strong  for  us, 
and  it  looked  as  if  cares  and  fears,  troubles 
and  misunderstandings  were  likely  to  defeat 
us,  and  the  battle  of  life  might  be  lost.  The 
222 


in  tbc  CoIIrffc  Cljapcl 

problems  of  the  world  about  us  have  seemed 
very  grievous,  and  the  perplexities  of  the  life 
within  very  perilous.  And  now  God  comes 
to  us  at  last  and  opens  our  eyes,  and  we  look 
back  and  say  :  "  What  a  good  year,  after  all, 
it  has  been."  There  never  has  been  so  good 
a  year  for  the  college  as  this.  There  never 
has  been  so  good  a  year  for  the  world.  With 
all  the  social  problems  and  agitations  that 
seem  so  threatening  about  us,  this  is,  after  all, 
the  best  year  that  God  has  ever  made.  And 
in  our  personal  conflicts,  how  plain  it  is  that 
the  forces  of  heaven  have  been  behind  us. 
No  man  has  thought  a  true  thought,  or  done 
an  unselfish  deed  this  year  without  a  backing 
which  now  discloses  itself  as  very  real.  Be- 
hind our  doubts  and  fears  have  been  the 
horses  and  chariots  of  fire.  Lord,  open  our 
eyes,  that  we  may  see  these  spiritual  allies 
and  enlist  ourselves  in  the  ranks  of  their  om- 
nipotence. 

223 


in  t&e  College 

xci 

THE  WORD   MADE  FLESH 
John  i.  1-14. 

(END  OF  COLLEGE  TERM) 

DO  not  enter  into  the  deeper  philo- 
sophical significance  of  this  great 
chapter,  but  any  one  can  see  on  the 
very  surface  of  it  the  general  truth  on  which 
Christianity  rests  its  claim.  God's  govern- 
ment of  the  world  is  here  described  as  oper- 
ating through  His  word.  God  simply  speaks, 
and  things  are  done.  God  says  :  "  Let  there 
be  light,"  and  there  is  light.  The  universe  is 
God's  language.  History  is  God's  voice.  By 
His  word  was  everything  made  that  is  made. 
Then,  when  the  fullness  of  time  has  come  this 
language  of  God  is  made  life.  What  God  has 
been  trying  to  make  men  hear  through  his 
word,  He  now  lets  them  see  through  his  life. 
His  word  becomes  flesh.  The  life  becomes 
the  light  of  men.  That  is  the  most  elemen- 
tary statement  of  the  doctrine  of  the  incarna- 
tion. It  is  the  transformation  of  language 
into  life. 


in  tfce  Colltffe 

Let  us  take  this  great  truth  into  our  own 
little  lives  as  we  part  on  this  last  day  of  com- 
mon worship.  God  has  been  speaking  to  us 
His  word  in  many  ways  through  our  worship 
here  ;  in  our  silence  and  in  our  song,  in  Bible 
and  in  prayer,  in  the  voice  of  different  preach- 
ers, and  in  the  voice  of  our  own  consciences 
and  hearts.  And  now  what  is  our  last  prayer 
but  this,  that  this  word  may  be  made  flesh, 
that  this  worship  may  be  transformed  into 
life,  that  these  messages  of  courage,  of  hope, 
of  composure,  of  self-control,  may  be  incar- 
nated in  this  life  of  youth  ;  that  out  of  the 
many  words  here  spoken  in  the  name  of  God, 
here  and  there  one  may  become  flesh  and 
walk  out  of  this  chapel  and  out  of  these  col- 
lege grounds  in  the  interior  life  of  a  conse- 
crated young  man.  The  life  is  the  light  of 
men.  May  it  be  so  with  us  here.  May  the 
spirit  of  him  in  whose  life  is  our  light,  en- 
lighten the  lives  which  have  gathered  here, 
and  lead  them  through  all  the  obscurities  of 
life,  and  brighten  more  and  more  before  them 
into  a  perfect  day. 

225 


LIST  OF  BIBLE   PASSAGES 


Address. 

Page. 

Address. 

Page. 

Genesis  iv,  9... 
Exodus  xx,  1-7 

.LXX  
LXXXIII 

..  176 

..  207 

Mark  xii,  30  ....  LXIX 
xiii,  t-9-.LXXIX  .. 

..  174 
..  198 

Deut.  xxxiii,  27 

XXXIII.. 

••    83 

Luke  ii,8-io  XXIX..  .. 

••     74 

I  Ks.  xix,  1-13. 

LXXV  ... 

..  187 

ii,  8-14.  ..XXX  

..     76 

II  Kings  vi,  17. 

XC  

..    212 

ii,  30-35-  -XXXI.... 

..     78 

Mat  ii,  i-n... 

.XXIX.   .. 

••     74 

iii,  16  XXVIII.. 

..     71 

hr,  i-n  .. 

XLVIII.. 

..   171 

xii,  I-S...LXXXVII 

..  215 

T.  t  .  .  . 

.XXII  

.     cS 

XT     17              L*  I  X 

146 

Vf    J  >  .  • 

XXIII.... 

..  io 

xvi,  I-10..LVIII.... 

••   143 

vj  t  

.XXIV.... 

..  62 

xvi.  1-12.  .LVII  

..    140 

v,  6  

xxv  

64 

xvii,  5-15.  LXXXIV 

..  209 

V     7 

XXVI  .  . 

67 

St.:::: 

.XXVII... 

.!     69 

xvii,  21  .  ..XIX  

..     52 

Y,  16  

IV  

Q 

148 

v,  17  

XV  

TT 

..     41 

xx,  19-38  .LXI  

..   151 

T,  21-25.. 

LXXXI.. 

..  203 

xxii,  39-46  LXXXV.. 

..    211 

VI.    I  —  1C 

LXXX  .  .  . 

xxii  39-48  LXI  1  1 

*'!  f    '5-  -  - 
VU,  I    .... 

XII  

..  '32 

xxiii,2o-26LXVII  ... 

..   168 

vih,  5-11. 
xii,  38-45- 

.V  
LVI  

.  .      13 
..    138 

John  i,  1-14  XCI  
iv,  10  LXXIII.. 

..  224 

..  i8a 

xiii,  1-9.. 

XLV  

•  •   "3 

vi,3$  XI  

..    29 

xiii,  1-9.. 

XLVI.... 

..  116 

viii,  32....  LXX  VI  1  1 

••   '95 

xiii,  1-9.  . 

XLVII... 

..   118 

xiv,  6  XXXVI  .. 

..     89 

xiii,  1-9  .  . 

XLVIII  .. 

..    120 

xiv,  14,  I6.XXXIV.. 

..     85 

xiii,  1-9.. 

XLIX.... 

..    122 

xvi,  32-...LXXII... 

..   180 

xiv,  23  ... 

VII  

..    18 

xvii.  22....  III  

7 

Xxi      17—21 

.LX  

1*8 

xviii,  28-38.  LXI  V  

xxii,  11-14 

LXXIV.. 

..   185 

xix,  30  ....LXV  

.'!   163 

xxiii,  24.  . 

LXXVI  .. 

..   189 

xx,8  VIII  

..     ai 

xxv,  14-30 

.L  

XXi,  22  ••••IX    

at 

xxv,  14—30 

.LI  

Acts  xx  YI   IQ.  •  •  »X  ••••••••« 

•  j 

xxv,  14-30 

.LII  

..   129 

Romans  xii,  i  ..XIV  

.'.'    38 

XXV,  22  ... 

.LIII  

..  131 

I  Cor.  xii,3i....LXXI.... 

..  178 

xxv,  24... 

LIV  

••   >33 

II  Cor.  iv,  io...XX  

••     54 

xxv,  29... 

.LV  

..   136 

xi,  3-...LXXXIX 

..  ai9 

Mark  iv,  17.... 

.XVIII.... 

..     49 

Galatians  Hi,  26.  LXXXI  I  . 

..  205 

iv,  27  .... 

.XLIX.... 

..    122 

iv,  6..LXXXII  . 

.  .  205 

vui,  34  •  • 

.XXI  

..      56 

iv,9..LXXVII  . 

..   192 

«.  35-45  • 

II  

4 

Kphes.lv,  13..  ..XVII  

..     48 

227 


Ephes.  iv,  14-17 
Phil,  iii,  ii  
II  Tim.  ii,  3  ... 
iv,  8  .  . 
Hebrews  xii,  i  . 
James  i,  12-17  . 
Rev.  ii,  1-7.  •  .  • 
ii,  8-10.  .  . 

list  o!  38ib 

Address.      Page. 
XXXV  87 

Ic  ftafifgasei 

Rev.  ii,  12-17. 
ii,  18-28  . 
iii,  i  .... 
iii,  8  
iii,  20.... 
xxi,  7  ... 
xxii,  17.. 

.8 

X 

Address. 

..XXXIX. 
..XL  
..XLI  
..XLII.... 
..XLIII... 
..XLIV... 
..XI  

Page. 

..    96 
...     99 

..    102 
...    I07 

..   no 
..     29 

.LXVI  166 
•  XVI  44 
VI  15 
I  i 

.LXXXVIII.  217 
XXXVII...     90 
XXXVIII..     93 

22 

STATE  manALSGOQ: 

LiOS  A|4G:  ;.  CIILi. 


LiOS 


